© Joëlle Desmet
Performance
Handle with Care
Ontroerend Goed
March 15 – 22, 2026
Running time: 60' – 90'
Tickets on sale from mid-December 2025
Full price: €13
Under 30 / Over 65 / Groups: €9
Students: €6.50
Membership: included in the subscription
A box has been delivered. It seems fragile. Inside are instructions and some objects. The audience takes to the stage, where there are no actors or stagehands. They open the box and the experience begins. In Handle With Care, Ontroerend Goed boils the theater down to its basics, letting the audience run the show as it reads the instructions, makes decisions, cooperates, reacts and chooses acts and paths that change with every show, each time producing a different, inimitable experience which includes moments of play, collaboration and surprise. The innovative works of the Belgian company Ontroerend Goed, founded in Ghent, encourage audiences not simply to watch, but to play an active role in the creative process. A unique participatory experience, Handle With Care shifts the focus from the stage to the construction of the piece, moment after moment, by the spectators.
The Belgian theatre-performance-group Ontroerend Goed (a punning name, roughly translated as “Feel Estate”) produces self-devised work grounded in the here and now, inviting their audiences to participate as well as observe. Whether they are performing backwards, turning spectators into voters who eliminate actors, guiding strangers through a labyrinth of mirrors and avatars to meet themselves, or placing the audience at the controls of the financial system, the company has made it its trademark to be unpredictable in content and form. They first emerged on the international scene in 2007, with The Smile Off Your Face, a one-on-one show in which the audience is tied to a wheelchair and then blindfolded. Their hit show Once and For All was an uncompromising celebration of raw teenage energy on stage. Since then, the Belgian company has won numerous prizes across Europe and has hit New York, Sydney, and London to critical acclaim. Ontroerend Goed tours worldwide and creates remakes of their productions in other languages: there are versions in Russian, French, Mandarin, Cantonese and Kazakh, among others. Ontroerend Goed delivers intense experiences built in the reality of theater. Convinced that life goes on during a performance, the group fabricates possible realities that question how we as individuals position ourselves in the world today. Led by artistic director Alexander Devriendt, the collective is convinced that every idea deserves its own brand of artistic expression, the company cherishes a sense of ownership for every single contributor to their work, from actors to light designers, scenographers to conceptual thinkers.
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Info
Performance recommended for ages 14 and up
The performance is entirely carried out by the audience, in Italian. You need to be able to read, understand and read out loud to grasp the performance.
Credits
Concept & creation: Alexander Devriendt, Karolien De Bleser, Samir Veen, Leonore Spee, Charlotte De Bruyne
Design: Nick Mattan, Edouard Devriendt
Voices: Silvio Vovk (HR), Jong Wook Yang (KR), Gina Beuk (DE), Karolien De Bleser, Leonore Spee, Samir Veen, Charlotte De Bruyne, Aurélie Lannoy, Alexander Devriendt, i.a.
Translation: Martine Bom (FR), Aurélie Lannoy (FR), Samir Veen (EN), Tiffer Hutchings (editor EN), Lore Meesters (DE), Hong Zhan (CN), Tai Yin Chang (CN), Mima Simić (HR), Dayoung Jeong (KR), Andrea Romano (IT), i.a.
Production team: Leda Decleyre, Lynn Van den Bergh, Willie-Marie Hermans, Hannes Pieters
Assembly: Jana Vos, Emma Verhaegen, Roos-Marie De Schryver, Juta Donckers
Photography: Ans Brys, Joëlle Desmet
Video: Aaron Denolf
Production: Ontroerend Goed
Coproduction: NTGent (BE), Stadttheater Schaffhausen (CH), Melbourne Fringe (AU), Theatre Royal Plymouth (UK), Take Me Somewhere, Glasgow (UK), CCAM Scène Nationale de Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy (FR), IDFA, Amsterdam (NL), De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam (NL), YOUNG Theatre, Shanghai (CN), Hexagone Scène Nationale, Meylan (FR), MAIF Social Club – Biennale Némo, Paris (FR), La Comédie de Clermont-Ferrand (FR), Lowry, Salford (UK), Scène Nationale Carré-Colonnes, Saint-Médard-en-Jalles (FR), Theater RAMPE, Stuttgart (DE), The Zoom Arts Center, Seoul (KR), Hong Kong Arts Festival (HK), Cambridge Junction (UK), The Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb (HR), La Mouche, Saint-Genis-Laval (FR), Sapienza CREA, Nuovo Teatro Ateneo, Rome (IT), Gothenburg English Studio Theatre (SE), Perpodium, Antwerpen (BE)
With the support of: the Flemish Community, the city of Ghent, the Tax Shelter measures of the Belgian federal government, Cronos Invest
Many thanks to: Angelo Tijssens, Wouter Lambrechts, zwartopwit, Speelkaartenmuseum / Rock Paper Pencil, Turnhout
Highlights
Veduta notturna dell’abitazione a cupola geodetica di Füller, progetto dell’allestimento dell’architetto Roberto Mango, realizzata nel parco Sempione per la decima Triennale
Modella posa nella sezione del Messico durante un servizio fotografico di moda
Caleidoscopio nella Sezione introduttiva a carattere internazionale, nel Salone d'onore
Sculture piramidali di Lynn Chadwick, nell’allestimento del Grande numero: l’intervento figurativo a grande scala