Eve Miller
Prepare to spend the next hour confused, laughing, and probably getting up on stage yourself. Immerse yourself in the beautifully human chaos of 2050.
2050: A Manifesto opens on a bizarre assortment of props and costumes; blow-up furniture, tubes and wires, mop slippers, and a baby bottle. Alex Hetrick reclines, holding eye contact with each of us as we enter and take our seats. His unwavering bemused stare gives nothing away, but hints at a lot going on beneath the surface. He stands, chooses a participant to hold his makeshift slides, and takes us through a brief history of the world to get us up to speed. And so he begins, with help from an AI assistant and of course, every single audience member.
Honestly, this piece was very difficult to follow – abstract, ridiculous, and endlessly open to improvisation, Hetrick ducks and weaves around the point, if he ever has one at all. Each section seemingly comes out of nowhere: dress-up, more slideshows, rants to Wilson, stand-up, Q &A’s with the audience, and a genuinely unsettling (/hilarious) section where Hetrick is fed milk by an audience member.
Hetrick is a fearless performer – he marches towards audience interaction with a combination of firm intention and openness to play that facilitates incredibly curious theatre making. While I spent most of the hour completely lost, I spent all of it having fun, happy to let the chaos wash over me. While few of his points were clear, the overarching anti-AI message was, and was only bolstered by the undeniably humanity of the performance.
Genuinely weirder than anything I’ve ever seen at EdFringe, 2050: A Manifesto is a fascinating insight into Hetrick’s mind. Did I ask to look in there? No. Am I glad I did? Yes.
Drink recommendation: Anything but milk, please God.
Performances of 2050: A Manifesto have now concluded for EdFringe 2026.
Pequod Compagnia
Oli Fuller
