Kidnapped – Frames of a contemporary landscape interrogates an assumed shared political hallucination — meticulously shaped by neoliberal logic, colonial legacies, and a capitalist realism that proclaims “there is no alternative". The piece uses the metaphor of kidnapping to reveal how our cultural, political, and personal choices are confined by market imperatives and identity struggles that rarely disrupt power structures. In the performance, two characters, Terror and Compassion, treat (and threaten) the audience as “kidnapped children”, transitioning from a childlike theater format to sinister political revelations through a spiral dramaturgy that disrupts linear time. By channeling historical “guests/ghosts” — from figures like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan to icons such as Michael Jackson and Pier Paolo Pasolini — the piece exposes the roots of our systemic captivity while inviting spectators to reclaim their agency. Ultimately, Kidnapped transforms abstract political despair into a visceral and collective call to reflect, resist, and challenge the forces that hold us captive.
