About the project
A small town places its entire identity in the hands of a women's handball team: if the players win, the factory survives; if they lose, everything falls apart.
As the factory's bankruptcy becomes inevitable, the woman who owns both businesses stakes everything on an internationally renowned coach and a high-profile signing, sacrificing the future of the workers who support the team. A serious workplace accident, mounting shortages and the pressure to qualify for the Champions League shatter the community's fragile balance.
Relationships grow strained, bodies buckle under the physical demands, and a doping scandal triggers the final confrontation. Pride, fear and lives put on hold collide on the court. The decisive match determines who survives.
Theatre, dance, sport and live music come together in a production about achievement, success and the limits to which bodies are pushed.
Concept
The production brings together theatre, dance, sport and live music to explore the physical and emotional intensity of elite women’s sport and its power to shape identity. Inspired by a handball team sponsored by a failing factory, it examines social prejudice, the pressure to succeed, rivalries and the sacrifices of athletes on whom an entire community’s sense of itself depends.
From the director’s note / Gabriel Sandu
The Handball Match (Meciul de handbal) combines three of the things I love most: theatre, music and sport — activities that have been part of my life for as long as I can remember. This project has been made with great passion, and I hope it brings to the stage that same passion from the world of people for whom sport is everything. I am fascinated by the theatricality of sporting competitions and their brutality. I am just as fascinated by the desire to win at any cost — even when that cost is physical integrity. For a long time, I have dreamed of using the performers’ physicality to bring the atmosphere of a major stadium event onto the stage. I am also interested in the ethical and moral dilemmas of sport, which readily lend themselves to parallels with our own world of the arts.
