Presciliana Esparolini, Troy Guthrie, and Mark Irvingsen (Photo by Bill Pierce)
Reviewed by F. Kathleen Foley
Topanga Actors Company at the Odyssey Theatre
Through Sept. 20
RECOMMENDED
Edward Giron and Allan Wasserman (Photo by Bill Pierce)
Poor Salvador Allende. He never had a chance. Elected President of Chile in 1970, he tried to usher in a democratic government, but his socialist views were deplored by Chile’s vested interests, who wanted him gone. Allende died—supposedly by suicide— in a 1973 attack on the Presidential palace by Augusto Pinochet, the commander-in-chief of the Chilean army. After Allende’s bloody ouster, Pinochet’s brutal military dictatorship held sway in Chile until 1990.
Yet while all the “haves” of the Chilean status quo were aligned against him, perhaps Allende’s most dangerous adversary was the United States, where then-president Richard Nixon and his national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, were plotting behind the scenes to depose his government by any means necessary.
Of course, when it comes to forcing regime change in a sovereign foreign nation, the CIA is America’s go-to bulldog. The actual role that the agency played in Allende’s deposition and death has never been determined — but while not actually smoking, the CIA’s gun was surely locked and loaded.
Mark Wilding’s comedy, Our Man in Santiago, now in a visiting production at the Odyssey Theatre, is an over-the-top farce about the CIA agents on the ground during the Chilean coup.
A relative newbie to the agency, Daniel Baker (Troy Guthrie) is a starry-eyed idealist who still believes that his country is the light of the world. His superior, Jack Wilson (Mark Irvingsen), is his ideological opposite, a soulless schemer who intends to exploit the current unrest to rise through the ranks. As part of a half-baked scheme to discredit his junior, he gives Baker a gun and sends him into the palace, fully expecting him to be killed in the fray — but Baker may not be as easily eliminated as Wilson callously supposed.
Meanwhile, Maria (Presciliana Esparolini) is just a simple hotel maid trying to do her job — or is she? While she skulks around the hotel room, supposedly “cleaning,” Wilson makes regular phone calls to the White House, apprising Nixon (Edward Giron) and Kissinger (Allan Wasserman) about events as they unfold. Is Allende alive, or has he been conveniently removed from the scene?
The second fully mounted production from the Topanga Actors Theater, Our Man has its blips. Among other plot irregularities, we’re never quite sure why Wilson is so intent on getting rid of Baker —but the play is so satisfyingly ridiculous that we forgive its missteps.
Joyce Hutter’s deliberately cheesy set design adequately approximates a “luxury” hotel suite in 1973 Santiago, while Richard Dugan’s sound design captures the chaos and warfare taking place in the streets just outside.
Elizabeth Herron’s delightfully over-the-top staging takes absurdity to the next level. Among the able actors, who run freely amok in Wilding’s convoluted farce, Guthrie is the comical standout of the evening, whose eventual metamorphosis from sweetly unschooled newcomer to die-hard “America First” ideologue is unexpectedly chilling.
Since the play is based, however loosely, on actual events, there’s a surprisingly serious side beneath the larger-than-life silliness. The fact that our country did, and still does, engage in such blatantly illegal actions on the world stage evokes our sense of shame, and underscores our laughter with a distinct hint of dismay.
Topanga Actors Company at the Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West LA. Thurs.-Sat., 7 pm, Sat.-Sun., 2:30 pm ; thru Sep. 20. https://onstage411.com/santiago 90 minutes, no intermission.
