The Diplomats

With manic glee, Martin Schwartz’s new comedy tears down the veneer of professional politeness … and shows audiences what diplomats are “really” like underneath. The year is 2005 and somewhere in Central Asia, a quartet of hapless cultural attachés tries and absurdly fails to put on a comic theater festival with the collaboration of a corrupt local government. In the midst of a human rights disaster, the performers they’ve booked refuse to show, forcing the diplomats to take matters into their own hands. With sex, drugs, insanity, and multilateral negotiations, The Diplomats is a fresh new farce of the highest order, brought to the stage by the envelope-pushing Dark Porch Theater.