Handle With Care by Ontoerend Goed – Camden People’s Theatre, London

Ontoerend Goed are masters and mistresses of theatre-making, maintaining an unerring focus on the question, generally overlooked, of why we – the audience – are there. In doing so, they are very willing to break through the boundaries of what we consider theatre to be. This reaches an apogee with Handle With Care, in which they do actually turn up. The entireity of the show is contained on a box delivered to the theatre and placed on the stage, alongside cards on each seat which read “The performance begins when someone opens the box”. It is a delightful and rather brilliant conceit. I don’t know whether anyone has ever failed to open the box, but on the night I attended someone got down to it straight away. Eventually wearing a cap, provided, reading ‘Not the director’ they initiated a train of instructions setting out the dramaturgy for the performance, and bringing various audience members into carry out tasks.

Without giving too much away, the point is that every performance will be different, as it made by audience content, engagement and attitudes. Of course, all theatre is different every time, but Handle With Care swings the focus away from the stage to the people who attend every night, who are the cause of what happens on stage, and also the difference. With subtle touches, Ontoerend Goed open up the potential for moments of deep reflection, startling emotion, unexpected exuberbance and spontaneous creativity. Can an audience fill an hour essentially entertaining itself? Handle With Care shows that yes, they emphatically can. Simply occupying a space with strangers is one of humanity’s most powerful and underutilised resources. Ontoerend Goed make most theatre seem shallow and naïve, cutting directly through to what matters with uncanny precision. In some ways, all of their cumulative experience and power as a company is contained in this magical box.