The Mailer Review/Volume 2, 2008/Mailer at the Théâtre Du Grand Guignol
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Written by
Daniele Pantano
Note: “Le Théâtre du Grand Guignol” refers to the notorious Parisian shock theatre founded in 1897 by Oscar Méténier, the naturalistic playwright. It closed in 1962.
URL: http://prmlr.us/mr08pant
Daniele Pantano
Note: “Le Théâtre du Grand Guignol” refers to the notorious Parisian shock theatre founded in 1897 by Oscar Méténier, the naturalistic playwright. It closed in 1962.
URL: http://prmlr.us/mr08pant
Fifty lifeless characters animated.
The audience, astonished, reflects upon the preeminent importance:
A curtain that never falls.
Performance and terror often contain an unconscious existence.
Vacuous eyes
Nonchalantly rising above any great and definite achievement,
While the Playbill attends a memorable ceremony:
A writer’s death flanked by language.
The stage conceives a stranger, a sage, matters of occultism,
In an attempt to stimulate man’s inner need
To move toward an addressable reality.
But the audience still believes in imitation, nothing more . . .
The applause raucous.