“The Radicalization Process” @ Hyperallergic
DETROIT — We need an action. Afloat in the enervating sea of neoliberalism, all creatures of good conscience agree that steps must be taken to turn the tide. And yet… what to do? What possible solutions exist, in the face of overwhelming systems reported on by celebrity-obsessed shock-and-awe media culture? Can we even imagine a better future?
We can, and it is crucial that we do. Experimental theater ensemble Hinterlands has boiled it down for us in their latest piece, a work two years in the making, titled The Radicalization Process. The oft-repeated thesis statement of this interactive theater performance — which just returned from a regional tour and continues its run at the company’s home base, Play House — is as follows: “The only war that matters is the war against the imagination; all other wars are subsumed in it.”