A profound experience of shared presence
Handle with Care was created by Ontroerend Goed, a boundary-pushing theatre ensemble from Belgium. Known for works like The Smile Off Your Face and Once and For All, they have once again brought their otherworldly imagination and daring experimentation to the stage. Handle With Care is a show with no actors and no technicians—only a box of props and instructions. Is a “performance” about to happen? Or has the event already begun?
The show, at its core, is about a sense of togetherness. It explores our co-existence with people geographically far away from us, or even years apart in time, who nonetheless share the same process with the audience on the night of the performance. Furthermore, it is about the togetherness with the people in the same room—those who chose to be there and to experience this project collectively. It’s about connection across different places, and it’s about working together as a community.
By having no performers and making the audience the actors who push the process forward, Handle With Care dismantles the entire watching-being-watched relationship and the power dynamic so embedded in theatre spaces. People suddenly start talking to each other, cheering for each other, and teaming up to solve the same tasks. The barriers between the stage and the audience, as well as those between the audience members, are taken down. People become a community, a team, a group of one, sharing the space and effort with each other but also the memories and connection with others from the past. After the show, what they create on the night would be shipped back to the OG office and delivered to another performance destination – the cycle continues.
In a post-COVID time when spaces often feel segregated, the piece’s mission to rediscover the meaning of here, now, and together carries special weight. Even after the show ends, people linger to discuss what happened and what could have happened. Someone started a list so the audience could gather again to finish the final project. The show carries on, as the connections among the participants have already been made.
Handle With Care offers a special theatrical experience that is both forward-looking in its eco-aware, minimalist design and yet also deeply rooted in the core origin of theatre: a group of people gathering to make stories happen. It is another testament to Ontroerend Goed’s brilliant creativity, and a quiet, simple, yet profound reminder of the importance of shared presence.