The
Laudanum Project are on their way to Old Castlemaine Gaol to unleash their most
nightmarish work thus far - The Grand Guignol Automaton.
From out of their harrowing stew of visceral poetry and musical
dissonance, The Laudanum Project will bring to life the hideous story of
Sandrine Moreaux, a tormented young woman with a terrifying past and an
unspeakable future.
Somebody once said that beauty is in the eye of the
beholder. Of course this is true providing that the scrutinizing eye sees what
is actually there. For if beauty is merely truth’s smile caught in a perfect
mirror, what then happens when that smile finally dies and fades? Ask The
Laudanum Project.
Set in Paris in 1920 this one act play explores the
obsessions, phobias and waking nightmares of a young woman whose inverse
perceptions of beauty and love lead her all the way from her sleepy village of
Coulon and onto the neon smeared boulevards of Pigalle. Within this labyrinth
of sleaze and danger Sandrine Moreaux hunts down the sanctified temple that has
always haunted her dreams, the infamous Théâtre Du Grand Guignol. Taking refuge
inside a darkened room within the theatre’s foyer Sandrine begins a terrifying
journey that will leave her transformed and reborn. As narrator Alphonse
Cheese-Probert pores over the hideously surgical minutiae of Sandrine Moreaux’s
monstrous story the impossibly intense soundtrack created by Lady Sophronia
Lick-Penny (Keyboards), Barnabas Oral (Percussion), and Shiny Helen (Accordion)
forms an ever shifting musical tapestry that envelopes the entire story from
beginning to end.
With
The Grand Guignol Automaton The Laudanum Project have once more ventured
behind the curtain and conjured up a disturbing world where fear begets beauty,
obsession begets love and ugliness is merely truth’s smile caught in a perfect
mirror.
“Evoking
Jean Genet and the penny dreadful, it both thrills and repulses, and will haunt
you for days.”
Christopher
Fieldus, Hana Theatre Journal
“The
Grand Guignol Automaton may be an unsettling piece of raconteur theatre but it is also
a great piece of theatre.”
Myron My, Theatre Press
VENUE:
Old Castlemaine Gaol, 36-42 Bowden St Castlemaine, Victoria, 3450
DATE:
16th & 17th of April
Time:
8:00pm
TICKETS:
Full: $35 Cocession: $30
BOOKINGS:
http://www.trybooking.com/GYPD
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