‘Without Blood’ tells timeless story of violence and mercy
In her latest performance, Flemish stage director Inne Goris shows that love helps overcome even the most traumatic of experiences
Moving on from here
“Maybe it’s a story that can help us confront what is happening around us, and to think about how we can move on,” Goris (pictured centre) says in reference to the violence currently troubling Europe. “It’s not that there is a happy ending, but what you see is two people experiencing the same thing from very different positions.”
Rather than responding to current events, however, the production began with a commission to mark the centenary of the First World War. “I started reading about the war, and all the stories that I found and thought were interesting have already been used in other performances,” Goris says. “But I have a bookshelf at home where I put all the books that I will maybe, one day, use for a performance, and Without Blood was one of them. It’s a book that I read about 10 years ago and that has always stayed in my mind.”
Baricco, who wrote the book in Italian, is vague about when and where the story takes place. In the first part, a group of armed men invade a farmhouse, intent on killing everyone inside. When the carnage is over, the adolescent Tito discovers a little girl, Nina, hidden beneath the floor. Struck by her beauty and innocence, he says nothing and lets her live.
The right words
In the second part of the novella, Nina and Tito meet again, many decades later. “What I always find interesting is how people respond to a traumatic experience, and that’s what’s happening here,” Goris explains. “They try to find the right words, to find a way to explain to each other what happened to them that night.”
One challenge in bringing this story to the stage is the contrast between the violence of the first section and the relative calm of the second. “We had the feeling that the first part is very cruel and very aggressive, and so quite hard to relate,” says Goris, who works under the auspices of the Ghent-based production company LOD Muziektheater. “So the composer Dominique Pauwels has worked on a way to capture that violence in sound and music.”
What I always find interesting is how people respond to a traumatic experience
For the second part, Goris has chosen a rather minimal setting, with the two protagonists – played by Lieve Meeussen and Johan Leysen – simply talking across a table. “It’s a choreography of words and little gestures taking place in one square metre,” she says.
The small girl who is seen curled up in the foetal position beneath the floorboards in the first part of the performance also reappears, a connection between the past and the present.
“I had the feeling that this image of the girl reminds both the woman and the man of the most beautiful and the most cruel things that they have ever experienced in their lives,” Goris explains. “So the girl is on stage, like the living wound of that night and its living beauty. She is a bit like a cat that is with them; at certain points, she pushes them to go on, and at another moment is there to comfort them.”
A child’s point of view
The performances that Goris creates often have this blend of theatre, music, dance and the visual arts. She also returns frequently to the themes of adults and children, making work for both audiences. “I always start with the story that I want to tell and how I want to tell it,” she says. “Deciding on the age group is one of the last steps.”
Her inspirations range from fairy tales to Greek tragedy, and from a joyful fascination with snow to the grim lives of Africa’s child soldiers. With Zonder Bloed, as the new production is called in Dutch, the darkness of the story and the minimal treatment demanded by Flemish writer Peter Verhelst’s dialogue meant it was destined for a more adult audience.
Yet these lines are not hard and fast. “We did a run through, and the 10-year-old brother of one of the girls who is singing was there. I wouldn’t say that he loved it, but he had some really interesting questions and made some good remarks,” Goris says. “So you shouldn’t underestimate children. You have to be careful sometimes, but not too careful. They also have questions about what is going on around us.”
13-15 April at Kaaitheater, Sainctelettesquare 20, Brussels (in Dutch with English surtitles)
20-21 May at NTGent, Sint-Baafsplein 17, Ghent (in Dutch, no surtitles)
6-8 June at LIFT Festival, London, UK (in English)
