The gifted comic writer, Peter Lefcourt (Mutually Assured Destruction, Showtime's “Beggars & Choosers”), returns with The Assassination of Leon Trotsky, a new play about a theatrical troupe making whoopee with the drama they have been hired to perform.
The drama in question was about the Mexican husband-and -wife painters Diego Rivera (Joe J. Garcia) and Frida Kahlo (Murielle Zuker), who in 1940 invited Leon Trotsky (Joel Swetow) and his wife Natalya (Holly Hawkins) to stay with them in their home outside Mexico City. This was when Trotsky was on the lam from Josef Stalin's murderous secret police.
The play opens in a "very off-Broadway" venue where the actors rebel against the lame text by snuffing the playwright (Greyson Lewis) and rewriting his story on the spot, in an improvised way. The venue then shifts to Coyoacan, Mexico, where the giddy thespians, freed of all restraints, proceed to drink, fight and fornicate `round the clock. Also involved in the revels are a beauteous, hot-blooded maid (Ashley Platz) and a gardener named Jesus (Christopher Rivas). Think the Marx Brothers having their anarchic way with a bit of left-wing history.
All of the humor is broad, bawdy and cartoonish, but fast and funny nonetheless. Farce always presents a tough theatrical challenge, but the playwright and his cast manage to handle it well, helped greatly by the deft work of director Terri Hanauer. Joel Daavid's sumptuous hacienda set is another big plus.
