At the turn of the 20th century, Oscar Metenier established the Grand Guignol Theatre, which emphasized a new and exciting genre that was originally “an extension of the naturalist movement” in theater. Similar to the idea of the Roman Coliseum, this new form appealed to the stereotypical human who is drawn to violence, and numerous short plays were introduced in Paris that dealt with death, torture, sex or a combination of all three.
But by 1962, when the Grand Guignol Theatre closed, the sensationalistic theatrical form supposedly disappeared with it.
However, this supposedly dead genre has undergone a full recovery – and an extra shot of adrenaline – thanks to Kristen Messer and Lindsey Snyder, the directors, adapters and lead actors of Andre De Lorde’s The Lab: An Experiment In Grand Guignol at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center.
The play, a theatre department Off-Center Production, features the two directors’ interpretation of the play. Messer and Snyder envelop the torture-heavy play with several profound layers of conceptual metaphor. For example, while the chief storyline revolves around a mad doctor’s Frankenstein-esque experiments (Igor-like deformed assistant included), the audience listens to a conversation between Alien Voices (David Kriebs and Catherine Schuler) as they discuss whether these examples of “thinking meat” deserve to be involved in the bigger galactic picture.
But if you’re not a narcissist, don’t be shocked by The Lab. Its pessimistic message – we’re all going to hell, and there’s nothing we can do about it – is the bottom line of the production.
The set design of The Lab is by and large one of the most interesting aspects of the play. By walking into the transformed Laboratory Theatre (the name of the theater and production sync up by eerie coincidence), the audience steps onto a latex-coated floor that crawls up the walls of the set, creating an eerily sterile environment that accentuates the increasing amount of blood stains that build up during the show.
With the help of two designers, Colin McIlvaine and Cory Ryan Frank, Messer and Snyder are able to make their nightmarish dream come true. Messer and Snyder play Professor DeMora and Dr. Gorlitz, respectively, two women who butt heads over a man named Samuel, played wonderfully by Hudson Taylor. Taylor seems to care for each of the two women, but secretly chooses one over the other (understandably, the lovely DeMora over the authoritative Gorlitz).
The differences between the two women are characterized through creative costume design. The human-experimenter Gorlitz, who comes to symbolize the evilness of humans when they cannot control their curiosities, is introduced with an S&M outfit underneath a lab coat facade, to contrast the clean pretense of her medical self and her unclean true intentions beneath. Professor DeMora’s costume design, in comparison, is much looser than Gorlitz’s skin-tight apparel and provides a nice distinction between the two characters.
After DeMora and Sam survive a terrible car accident, it is Gorlitz who becomes responsible for the care of the woman she hates so much, and her suspicions are confirmed when she reads a love letter from Sam to DeMora. After this affirmation of the truth between the two lovers, Gorlitz takes it upon herself – with the help of her disfigured aid Mitchinn (Chase Helton) – to keep DeMora alive long enough to experiment on her victim and open the secrets of the human brain.
Yet after a significant amount of time passes, DeMora is still under Gorlitz’s care, suffering side effects and health problems as a result of the doctor’s gruesome experiments. The final scene demonstrates the extent of these problems, including dementia, hallucinations and, ultimately, violent insanity and bloodshed for all. Blood and gore fans, Merry Christmas.
In this final scene, special effects coordinator and fight choreographer Casey Kaleba really gets to open his bag of tricks as he unleashes some of the most brutal and inhuman acts ever put on a stage – and DeMora finally enacts her revenge on Gorlitz with a mix of everything ever promised by Grand Guignol Theatre: “throat-slashing, acid-throwing and other equally grisly climax.” At times, because of the intensity of Snyder’s and Messer’s performances, it’s easy to forget this is all a production and not a real live horrorshow.
On a whole, The Lab is truly impressive, a brutal representation of emotion-driven madness. And despite the fact that most of the action occurs toward the end of the play, the story keeps up the pace long enough to keep audience members engaged. And though the climax of the play “escalated fairly quickly,” to quote Ron Burgundy, The Lab stays true to its original form, hellish themes and ideas. The patrons of the Grand Guignol Theatre would be proud.
Contact reporter Dave Smith at diversions@dbk.umd.edu.
