In the early years of the 21st century, it was a dark and rainy night. The door was locked, and determined hammering drew forth only a solitary figure.

The stage was well and truly set for the Theatre du Grind Guignol, even before we got in the door. The Allen Hall Theatre on a rainy Dunedin night isn’t entirely welcoming and could almost be called sinister, particularly when one is early and the doors haven’t been opened yet.

The small but very enthusiastic audience arrived on time and proceeded to thoroughly enjoy the three plays, Firenze, La Casa du Diablo and The Tramp. The audience was almost as entertaining – and horrifying? – to watch and listen to as the action on stage. A sense of pantomime came from the entirely free manner in which it applauded, hissed, laughed and squealed at regular moments, usually the right ones.

In such an intimate crowd, it is difficult not to be distracted by the watchers but the cast held its own. The acting was easily as good as any on the stage of Dunedin’s bigger theatres and Hana Aoake, Abby Howells, Kajsa Louw, Dianne Pulham, Jerome Cousins, Caitlin McNaughton, Sam Irwin and Hadley Taylor, with guest appearances by Elsa May and Josh Smythe, were a completely satisfying cast.

A combination of the Grand Guignol, a 20th century theatre in back alley Paris where audiences could sate their appetites for horror and depravity and frequented by such as Anais Nin, and the slasher and grindhouse movies of the 70s and 80s, the Theatre du Grind Guignol seemed to sate this audience’s desire for the correction of imbalanced power, and for the quick dose of terror offered by a true kiwi slasher.

Firenze, based on Un Crime dans une Maison de Fous, a play originally shown at the Grand Guignol, is a dark commentary about the misery endured in turn of the previous century asylums run by vengeful Catholic nuns but overseen by doctors with more than just medicine on their minds. Told in red light and manic mutterings of prayer and madness, the Maretty sisters are divinely deranged, one like a demented kitten and the other like a bitch in heat, while poor Luisa can only dream of a life of sanity. The appreciative gasps and laughter from the audience were often echoed back by mocking laughter from the stage, strengthening the sense of pantomime. The end was far and away the best bit and an unexpected twist.

La Casa de Diablo, also based on a Grand Guignol original, Le Baiser dans la nuit, was disturbing, as, with nonchalant ease, it unfolded the casual cruelty – for a purpose mind you – that is humanly possible and told with such relish by the wealthy Messers Rich and Arnold. Revenge, often served cold, was dealt hot and bloody as Isabella revealed her identity. The men were oily and menacing, the whores ingratiating and surprisingly vicious. The butler really made this one though, with his understated but acerbic comments and punctual generosity with the liquor.

The Tramp is a quintessential New Zealand play written by Paul Rothwell, where four youths go tramping and very bad things happen to them. The audience screamed louder than the cast at the crucial moment and the shrieks of laughter that followed almost drowned out the closing scene – not necessarily a bad thing as it wound up very quickly. Once everyone was dead, there really wasn’t much more to be said after all and I’m not sure anything could top the screams from the second row anyway.

Power was turned on its head, the truly bad got their comeuppance while the newly bad basked in their revenge and those kiwi teens learned once again, but too late, not to go out alone. The audience was left sated and pleased it had ventured out into the dreary rain – this really wasn’t a play you could go to on a balmy summer’s night…

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