AWAD - Grand Guignol
Today's word is Grand Guignol, from Le Grand Guignol (literally, The Great Puppet), a theater in Paris that specialized in such entertainment. Earliest documented use: 1905.
Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol started in 1897 in a former chapel in Paris. Its specialty was gruesome and gore. A typical evening featured a series of short plays. It’s said that the theater measured the success of a play by how many in the audience fainted. As a marketing gimmick, the theater management hired doctors to be in attendance. The theater closed its doors in 1962. Charles Nonon, its director at the time, said: “We could never compete with Buchenwald. Before the war, everyone believed that what happened on stage was purely imaginary; now we know that these things -- and worse -- are possible.”
Learn more at: wordsmith.org/words/grand_guignol.html
AWAD - Grand Guignol
Today's word is Grand Guignol, from Le Grand Guignol (literally, The Great Puppet), a theater in Paris that specialized in such entertainment. Earliest documented use: 1905.
Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol started in 1897 in a former chapel in Paris. Its specialty was gruesome and gore. A typical evening featured a series of short plays. It’s said that the theater measured the success of a play by how many in the audience fainted. As a marketing gimmick, the theater management hired doctors to be in attendance. The theater closed its doors in 1962. Charles Nonon, its director at the time, said: “We could never compete with Buchenwald. Before the war, everyone believed that what happened on stage was purely imaginary; now we know that these things -- and worse -- are possible.”
Learn more at: wordsmith.org/words/grand_guignol.html