Some have seen it as a meditation on creation itself — of an art work , or a universe , and both are created live on stage in front of you .
Like any act of creation , Germinal begins with a void .
An empty stage , a darkened theatre , eyes and ears waiting for something without knowing what it will be . This absence , says Halory Goerger , is what an artist always starts with .
But it is a lie . The apparent void is in truth a mask , under which teems all of the possible scenarios at the artist ’ s command . For Goerger , “ this emptiness is an illusion . That ’ s what the theatre space is about — giving you as many options as you can get , out of the viewer ’ s field of vision , that can be summoned at any time .”
The creation of Germinal began with a void that was not a void , too . Goerger and co-creator Antoine Defoort had been collaborating on a residency for a while , but none of their projects quite took . “( We were ) working on a bunch of ideas that never quite made it to the point of being a full show but were only works-in-progress , and after two failed attempts we decided to just start over again , from scratch , with as much emphasis as possible on the legitimacy of every element we introduced in the play . It became the whole reference framework for the piece .”
Goerger and Defoort created their void to overcome a proliferation of ideas . Stripping everything back to nothing to start all over , and giving full and concise consideration to anything that made its way into the piece , Goerger and Defoort could have produced a final work marked by extreme minimalism or austerity . Instead , Germinal is bursting with an abundance of surprises and rich conceptual twists .
Some have seen it as a meditation on creation itself — of an art work , or a universe , and both are created live on stage in front of you . Goerger denies that there was a conscious engagement with spiritual or religious notions of creation during the work ’ s development . “ Absolutely not . Though we get here and then the odd friendly email about how close we got to this or that central myth of a said religion .”
But the conceptual space in which the work unfolds can certainly be seen as an alternate dimension , and one in which its creators have free reign to invent the laws by which it is governed .
Before moving into the world of theatre , Goerger ’ s background was in information science , and this coupled with an interest in communication and language helped fashion the focal point through which this parallel universe would be encountered by the performers who find themselves within it .
The deep exploration of communication systems in Germinal “ probably reflects our reading at the time ,” says Goerger , “ in my case my academic background , and the belief that it was strong material for this particular piece . Because in this alternate universe , ( where ) they ’ re bound to be performers , it felt only natural that we spent some time on it .”
That emphasis on performance is another lens through which the work can be understood — each of the bodies on stage is just that , and while what unfolds is a fictional scenario , there ’ s also an implicit recognition of theatre as something situated in a real time and space . “ We wanted the audience to be witnesses of how things get done by the performers on two scales at the same time : a very local one , the stage work ; and a broader one , the history of a parallel universe .”
The result hovers strangely between the metatheatrical wall-breaking of much European theatre and the less ironic , more sincere adherence to theatrical conventions that is slowly creeping back into contemporary practice . Goerger says he finds himself in an odd position in regard to conventions and the breaking thereof , coming late to the party as it were . “ Having no background in theatre when I started my career , I started so far from those , that I today live and enjoy a sort of personal revival of the theatrical conventions . It feels like visiting greatgrandma , and discovering that she actually is right on so many topics , and enjoying her company a lot . But from time to time she says pretty racist stuff and there ’ s this awkward silence .
“ I also believe that the theatre as a space , is a public asset , and should be reclaimed by the artists , reformed and honored at the same time . I ’ m working on that , and it will actually be the subject of a lecture I give during our stay in Melbourne .”
— JOHN BAILEY