The Grand Guignol. One photo.

There's so much we don't know. From 1897 to 1962 there was something calling itself The Theatre of the Grand Guignol at the end of a little side street. It went through numerous revisions. It's possible that the Grand Guignol of 1940 wouldn't have recognised its 1897 self. Throughout the entirety of that time though it appears to have been outsider art.

Or was it? It probably wouldn't have thought of itself as outsider. It appears to have been shaped by commercial pressures to become its unique self. The actors were proper professionals, it paid proper wages. It was, for most of its existence, a highly profitable and successful theatre. Probably. It's hard to get proper numbers.

Anyway, the photo. Retrieved from an Ebay listing, it's a promotional postcard, which holds out the salivating possiblity that this was a regular promotional tool and there are more somewhere (so far there aren't, was this a one off? A failed experiment?). It shows eight smartly dressed individuals, three women and five men, standing outside the Grand Guignol. I'm taken by the two proto-goths on the left there. For dates we have the poster to either side of the door. The second piece "Les Nuits Hampton-Club" is clearly visible. Fortunately for us Les Nuits was only ever produced once (according to Agnes Pierron's magnum opus), allowing us to date the photo to somewhere between January and April 1908.

photograph of eight people outside the theatre of the grand guignol. Probably taken in spring 1908. Three women and five men, I currently have no names for them.
Fig 1. A postcard (retreived from an Ebay listing). The poster advertises "Nights at the Hampton Club" (Les Nuits du Hampton-Club). According to Agnes Pierron that was only presented once in February to May 1908. That's consistent with dress, so I'm calling this spring 1908. I currently have no idea who the people are. It's tempting to think they're actors, but there's no evidence for or against. The only play from the spring 1908 programme carried in Pierron's book is Les Nuits du Hampton-Club, which rather helpfully gives its cast as:

  • HERBERT FORBES - MM BRIZARD
  • PRESIDENT - TUNC
  • PROFESSOR TRIGGS - BUSSY
  • RIVERS - DEFRESNE
  • SIR ARCHIBALD - LOUVIGNY
  • OWENS - RATINEAU
  • GURNBRIDGE - VALBEL
  • COLVILLE - VERNAUD
  • SAM - NICOLLE

I'm assuming at this stage that Ratineau is Paul Ratineau, who will go on to become the Grand Guignol's special effects wizard. There are photos of him in the Time Magazine special from 1947, but they are still copyright. Also we have "Tunc" in 1908 and "Tung Frere" in 1907. Both rendered in upper case, so the possibility of a typo exists.

A moment in history.

The script for Hampton-Club contains the following:

In Les Nuits du Hampton-Club, it was Max Maurey who encouraged Mouëzy-Éon to go as far as possible in the horror: "I can still hear him say to me, about the final scene where the suicide in spite of himself screams his terror in the dark: “Your man's monologue is too mushy! Lock yourself in your cellar and try to imagine and translate the reactions of a guy who feels that his death is near and cannot guess where it will come from!" I did not lock myself in my cellar where I only went down for more pleasant purposes, but I ended up giving birth to a monologue which satisfied our sadistic director and which revolted, as he wished, his loyal audience."

André Mouëzy-Éon, Farewells to the Troupe, Memories of the Theatre, The Round Table, 1963. Cited in Pierron 1995.

So by 1908 the Grand Guignol is very much taking on the shape it will become legendary for, and it's Max Maurey who is pushing that.

A possibility.

The postcard I found on Ebay was presumably printed in 1908. It was one of a set of four. There is nothing to indicate that they were all part of a set, but could they be the same actors? If that's the case, then the three portraits could match to the three women in the group photo.

Case One.

Fig 2. Mlle Jane Fontaine. They do look similar. To me at least. If that is the same woman then it supports the possibility that the group is at least part of the spring 1908 company, and it gives us a name for at least one of the actors.

Case Two

Fig 2. This could be Vatta? I'm mostly working off the shape of the jawline. It's to be regretted that we don't have a more extensive resource for the Grand Guignol. A search of Pierron 95 indicates that Vatta appeared in what looks to be a minor role in UN CONCERT CHEZ LES FOUS by Charles Foleÿ and André De Lorde in January 1909. Other than that I've currently got nothing for her.

Case Three

Fig 3. Mivella? Minella? This one is a bit of a stretch given the difference in angle and expression. I'm mostly relying on the shape of the nose here, and I'm losing faith in that; the tip looks different.

A tentative possibility. It's a tiny bit chilling just how much these people have disappeared.

Now I am curious.

Pierron's list of plays is in chronological order, so if Hampton Club is 1908, then before it we have Les Operations du Professeur Verdier (16th May, 1907)

PERSONNAGES

at first read it seems they had a strange way of rendering some names prenom surname and others surname prenom.

In 1909 Pierron gives us Apres Coup, ou Tics!, which does look to have been a decent hit. The cast for that is:

PERSONNAGES

A question of numbers.

In a similar vein at this stage I don't know how big the acting company was - we're told in Pierron's biography of Paula Maxa that Maxa was allowed to use Choissy's office as a dressing room, which implies space was tight. Go back to the Fevrier 1908 programme and we see:

1908. Février :
  • La Suicidette, c. de Johannès Gravier;
  • Le Cyprin ou la Précaution inutile, c. de Charles Martel ;
  • Les Nuits du Hampton-Club, d. d'André Mouëzy-Éon, d’après Robert-Louis Stevenson
  • Les Bâtons dans les roues, e. de Robert Dieudonné ;
  • L'Angoisse, d. de Pierre Mille et Ceylia de Vylars
  • Les Donnadieu, c. de Maurice de Féraudy et Jean Kold.

Six plays, one with an all male cast of nine. Even if the others were duologues that's a minimum of nineteen people without some overlap. At this stage I flat out refuse to believe that there were up to thirty actors backstage in that show in that tiny building (especially as they were all getting paid, that's a big wage bill). It's dangerous to make assumptions but I would expect each actor to play multiple roles, and Hampton Club to be every single man on stage, and the fact that it was only produced once may have something to do with its cast size. Which may give an insight into the expected company size per season. However this is all assumption without evidence. We shall see.

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