Shocker

While some old-fashioned turn-ons no longer electrify -- when's the last time you were bowled over by a player piano? -- some retro pastimes have retained their charm. Take homemade ice cream. Ferris wheels. And the melodramatic live theater known as Grand Guignol. Named after the Parisian playhouse that titillated early 20th-century audiences with bawdy antics and gore, Grand Guignol-style theatrics fell from favor after World War II.

Jill Tracy as the menacing Countess Edwige.

Details

Runs Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. through Nov. 20

Admission is $18-20 ($45-50 for "Shock Box" seating)

248-1900

ww w.hypnodrome.com

The Hypnodrome, 575 10th St. (at Bryant), S.F.

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More About

• Russell Blackwood
• Eddie Muller
• Norma Desmond
• Jill Tracy

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But if the San Francisco troupe Thrillpeddlers has its way, Grand Guignolwill soon be hot again. Starting on Oct. 7, "Welcome to the Hypnodrome" settles in for a six-week run of 90-minute evenings, each containing three short plays adapted from vintage tales. One of the pieces, Bearded Assets, is a comedy about a hirsute temptress; the other two are ripping horror yarns with Tales From the Crypt-style twists. Murder of the Will, as adapted by local noir impresario Eddie Muller, contains morphine abuse, a bullet-to-the-head suicide, and adultery with a member of the living dead, while The Beast is a retelling of The Phantom of the Opera with a batty old countess.

"I get to do my wide-eyed Norma Desmond performance," laughs S.F. chanteuse Jill Tracy, whom Thrillpeddlers producer Russell Blackwood cast in both horror pieces. "It's not like other blood-and-guts Thrillpeddlers shows, where they'd do stuff like throw wet spaghetti at the audience. It's more elegant and eerie and sophisticated."

And a little kinky, too -- the Hypnodrome theater has several "Shock Boxes" rigged with special effects like joy buzzers and menacing spikes, plus utter privacy for the couple within. Blackwood doesn't necessarily expect viewers to use his "trysting boxes" to get busy, as viewers did in the old Grand Guignoltheater, but if they wanted to, they'd have a nearly legitimate reason: "Bringing back old thrills of all kinds," as Blackwood puts it.