Grand Guignol

Aboutface has produced six productions based on, or suggested by, original Grand Guignol plays. The genre work fits Aboutface's aim of examining and reinterpreting original theatrical forms.

“The Grand Guignol has always existed.. The impulse to shock, to display the extremes of human behavior, and then to demonstrate the divine punishments that follow for those who violate society’s taboos may have been the original social function of all performance...Of the contemporary groups producing grand guignol, only the Aboutface Theatre Company has created a true Grand Guignol atmosphere–with startling effects, strange and powerful performances, and–best of all–great writing.” -Mel Gordon, author, The Grand Guignol, Theatre of Fear and Terror