A VERY GRAND GUIGNOL CHRISTMAS
LA TIMES CRITIC'S CHOICE
Directed
and Produced by: Debbie McMahon
Co-Produced
with [via] Corpora for the first LA Physical Theatre Arts Festival
Art/Works Theatre
Featuring our trademark preshow festive environment with Absinthe demo/tasting, treats and drinks, this performance mixed classic Grand Guignol plays with original physical performance. Playing with the Grand Guignol theme (meaning ‘big puppet’), the Guignolers are big puppets come to life, popping out of big Christmas gifts in a chaotic Nutcracker-like theme. Andre du Lorde's The Laboratory of Hallucinations depicts a scientist who performs torturous experiments on the brains of his patients, invoking pain and terrible hallucinations before enacting the ultimate revenge on his wife’s lover. In the farce, These Cornfields, by Georges Courteline, a tempestuous couple use an innocent guest as a pawn in their escalating mayhem. The French finger puppet troupe, Les Petits Guignolers present The Final Kiss, a bloody, erotic, existential drama on a very small scale. The Master of Ceremonies performs, Dance Macabre, as a marionnette of an angry puppeteer, who frees herself both from her strings and her imagination in an Absinthe induced hallucination, in which while dancing wth a male puppet partner, discovers that they are both ...only puppets. As true to the Physical Theatre Fest of which this event takes part, the evening also features dance, mime, movement, and puppetry.
SPECIAL EFFECTS: Tyler Olsen * CHOREOGRAPHY:
Jeanne Simpson
LIGHTING DESIGN: Brandon Baruch * STAGE MANAGER: Josh Pritchard
SET BUILD Rick Atcheson * House
Manager: Morgan Lancaster
avec: * Ramy Eletreby * Kevin Dulude * Ruthie Frank Jeremy Guskin
* Dani O'Terry * Gary Karp * Debbie McMahon * Michael Serwitch
* Tina Van Berckelaer * Niki Foster
* Monique Gonsalves * Patrick Humphrey * McKenna Kelly-Eiding
* Ember Knight * Zachary Tatum-Nolan
PHOTOS
