Theater Review: Blood Bucket Ballyhoo
Producer and director Russell Blackwood is an expert on stage blood. He knows how to make it dribble or spray, or flow from actors' mouths. He also knows how to poke out an eyeball, complete with membrane. In fact, he experiments with stage blood so much that he often comes into our office, where we work together, with faded stains from his fingernails up to his elbows. Besides this suspicious-looking coloring, the other thing that distinguishes Blackwood is his wicked belly laugh. It's no wonder that he presides over the city's only theater company to gleefully honor horror and dismemberment, the Thrillpeddlers, now presenting the exuberant, if slightly uneven, Blood Bucket Ballyhoo at its SoMa home, The Hypnodrome.
Thrillpeddlers is dedicated to reviving the spirit of Le Theatre du Grand Guignol, a lowbrow form of shock theater that flourished in early 20th-century Paris, celebrating taboo subjects like insanity, torture and revenge, and throwing in some farce that poked fun at social customs. The goals were to sexually titillate audiences, and make them pass out. Audiences didn't go to the Grand Guignol to see well-written plays or terrific acting.
Likewise, you shouldn't expect any different from Blood Bucket Ballyhoo. They went to see the blood spray and have little trysts in the theater boxes. We (bring a date) headed to The Hypnodrome on Saturday for its last midnight performance (it plays for six more Saturdays at 8 p.m.), where Blackwood, decked out in a black brocade smoking jacket and a hint of black eyeliner, showed us to our Shock Box. Modeled after the private theater boxes of the Grand Guignol so popular with matinee-attending housewives, The Hypnodrome's Shock Boxes, which fit two, are situated behind the regular audience seats and have curtains you can draw if you want some, ahem, privacy. Ours was outfitted with two collars on a chain, and was decorated with a crucifix with whips around it, a human bone and other weird miscellany, and a strategically placed mirror (the boxes were designed by Dan Corr). They are, however, a little small for any activity that can't be accomplished while sitting side by side. We highly recommend reserving a Shock Box, where hidden technicians enhance your experience with extra special effects (we admit it, we screamed a couple of times).
The evening's bill consisted of an opening game, where Bob Taxin guesses under which paper bag an audience member has stashed an upturned knife by slamming his palm down on each except for the deadly one (he hopes), and three short plays inspired by actual Grand Guignol comedies and thrillers: Rob Keefe's "Lips of the Damned" and "A Slight Tingling," and Eddie Miller's adaptation "The Drug." Despite the name, Blood Bucket Ballyhoo isn't exactly a bloodbath, which is a little disappointing. Most of the torture comes at the end of the pieces. "Lips of the Damned" features a pair of lovers cavorting in a rat-infested museum of torture devices, including a guillotine (constructed by Tony Grat based on an actual drawings from the time), until the husband exacts his revenge. "The Drug's" climax happens in a Saigon opium den, where a man retaliates against his former lover who blinded him by throwing acid in his face (the plays opens after the acid-throwing incident). "A Slight Tingling," the most entertaining of the three, is a comedy where a surgeon tries to determine which patient he left his scissors in by using a machine that detects—and removes—metal.
The plays were hampered by a few low-energy and uneven performances and some slow pacing, especially in "The Drug," which could have reached its climax in half the time. And, The Hypnodrome, or Grand Guignol in general, is no place for any P.C. police who object to the sight of women being bound and victimized, or who object to men being victimized, or who object to women being dominant, or…well, you get the idea.
That aside, Blood Bucket Ballyhoo is a damned good evening of gore, flirtation and expert special affects. The blood flowed and spurted in a satisfying bright hue, met with groans, hoots and laughs from the audience. In the show's final climax, where a crossdressed Blackwood went ballistic, the effects were so thrilling that some audience members jumped across the aisle to hold onto their friends. It was the sort of ending that makes you want to see the next show.
Blood Bucket Ballyhoo plays until September 24.
Photo: Eric O'Brien and Delfina Hasiwar in "Lips of the Damned." Photo by David Allen.