In The Event That...

You Could Use a Good Scare

by Donny Sheldon

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Published: Jul 31, 2007

Blood Theatre

Runs Aug. 7-18, $15-$17.50, Shubin Theatre, 407 Bainbridge St., 215-592-0119, www.carcrashclub.com

Some people catch up with old friends over a cup of coffee. Chris Seamans reunited with his buddies onstage, drenched in blood and gore: When Seamans returned to the States in June 2006 after completing military service in Iraq, he founded The Car Crash Club of Greater Philadelphia, a hodgepodge collection of amateur actors, musicians, designers and diehard fans of horror films. Their first theatrical production, Blood Theatre, resurrects the grisly tradition of Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol of Paris, which specialized in naturalistic horror productions from 1897 until its closing in 1962.

Split into three one-acts, Blood nods to the work of actor and special effects wizard Tom Savini, Night of the Living Dead director George A. Romero and horror mastermind John Carpenter. The show's first play, The Final Kiss, was adapted from Maurice Level's Le Baiser dans la nuit (first performed at Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol in 1911), and features dramatizations of crimes from early-20th-century tabloid headlines. Next up is an update of Grand-Guignol regular André De Lorde's A Crime in the Mad House, which takes the audience on a twisted, gruesome journey from the Neshaminy Mall to the abandoned Byberry Hospital. And closing out the evening, 11th Hour, another De Lorde adaptation, captures the terror that is the modern political world — an all-too-relevant topic both now and when the play premiered in France in 1904.

While Seamans is going for authenticity ("The goal and point of the Grand-Guignol tradition is to be elaborate and graphic"), that shouldn't deter those with weaker stomachs. "The form is very campy. Think Saturday afternoon horror."

 

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