Let’s Start A Fake Cult: Nihilism, Narcissism, Hypnotism

Reviewed by Ryan McGreal

The vibe is absurdist in Jake Cenk Koseleci’s performance art piece, Let’s Start a Fake Cult. 

Koseleci is a post-Enlightenment Renaissance figure - a business leader disillusioned with business and a philosopher who lost faith in philosophy. This might sound tragic, but Koseleci does not complain or ask for sympathy. Instead, he invites the audience into an audacious experiment.

Over a ruminative but warm and often funny monologue, Koseleci traces his life so far, including his years of grappling with the big questions and bumping into the limits of knowledge. 

The set is minimal: just a red couch, a side table with a laptop and some musical instruments - an Ableton digital audio controller and a xylophone. Koseleci’s delivery is loose, informal and conversational.

Between anecdotes about his childhood, he interleaves the long philosophical struggle between Platonists who believe in ideal forms that give life meaning and empiricists who reject non-falsifiable sources of belief.

If the most fundamental questions are unanswerable and life has no intrinsic meaning, he asks himself, What are you gonna do? Become an artist, maybe. But what if you can’t draw? 

Of course, there are other media and other ways to invite the audience into a world created by the power of artistic imagination. I don’t want to give too much away, but the performance was both intellectually bracing and unsettlingly surreal, and I wouldn’t want to have missed it. 

And I’m still not entirely certain, but I think I might actually be a member of a fake cult now.

Event Details

Age Suitability: Mature (ages 18+)

Genre: Theatre—Comedy, Storytelling/Solo Show

Run Time: 50 mins

Playwright / Performer

Jake Cenk Koseleci

Director

Dexter Ico

Audio Visual Producer

George Tarabay

Warnings

Other

Contents may blow your mind!