Gothic Drama Presentation

Grand Guignol

• The most common type of Gothic Drama, usually containing over the top gore.

Began in France at the Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol, or, the Theater of the Big Puppet 

Examples of Grand Guignol 

ÒUn Crime dans une Maison de Fous, by André de Lorde: Two hags in an insane asylum use scissors to blind a young, pretty fellow inmate out of jealousy.

ÒLe Baiser dans la nuit by Maurice Level: A young woman visits the man whose face she horribly disfigured with acid, where he obtains his revenge.

ÒA modern example of Grand Guignol would 

be Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Pantomime

ÒStarted in ancient Greece.

ÒBecame popular in the Mideaval Era. (In Hamlet, they mention a “Dumb Show”, which is a pantomime of the play they are about to see).

ÒEnglish pantomime was influenced by the  commedia dell'arte.

ÒBy the 1800’s, pantomimes were mostly adaptations of fairy tales.

Hippodrama

ÒA type of theater in which horses played a major role.

ÒSome productions include Don Quixote de la Mancha, The Blood Red Knight, and Shakespeare adaptations.

ÒA modern example of Hippodrama would be the show at Mideval Times.

ÒIn 2009, an  equestrian verison  of Ben Hur was preformed at the O2 in London.

Censorship

ÒNo plays publicly performed until permission granted by Lord Chamberlain

Ò“does not in its general tendency contain anything immoral or otherwise improper for the stage”

ÒExaminer of Plays read for Lord Chamberlain – “the most powerful man in England or America”

ÒExaminer could “alter expressions against his rules” to make plays more appropriate and performable

ÒPenalty of fifty pounds for defying the Censor

The cenci

ÒPrivate performance for the Shelley Society in 1886 after permission for a public performance was refused by Lord Chamberlain

ÒMomentarily a “defeat of the Censor,” but the man who lent the theater to Shelley was punished by Chamberlain and there is “now a clause in the lease of that theatre stipulating that no performances of unlicensed plays shall be given in it”

ÒNot publicly performed in England until 1922

Sources

ÒCameron, Kenneth M., and Horst Frenz. “The Stage History of   Shelley’s The Cenci.” PMLA 60.4 (1945): 1080-105.   JSTOR. Web. 21 April 2013.   http://jstor.org/stable/459292.

ÒShaw, George B. “The Censorship of the Stage in England.” The   North American Review 169.513 (1899): 251-62. JSTOR.   Web. 21 April 2013. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25104865.