Hayes Theatre Co, Sydney
April 29, 2018

In 1937, Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky arrived in Mexico and had a brief affair with Frida Kahlo, who was by then already married to Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. Her husband was already more famous than her and it wasn’t until around 20 years after her death, aged just 47 in 1954, that Kahlo’s naïve folk art, tackling questions to do with identity, postcolonialism, gender, class and race in Mexican society, became vastly more famous than his. Kahlo, of course, had an extraordinary and in many ways dreadful life, having suffered childhood polio and a terrible street accident in a tram that left her damaged for life. There was also her iconic monobrow.

Natalie Gamsu with Andrew Kroenert and Stefanie Jones. Photograph © David Hooley

But what if Kahlo and Trotsky had a child? In Carmen, Live or Dead she is called Carmen Frida Leon Davidovich. She is an orphan, a refugee, salacious, wry, always on the look out for love across countries and years, and she is intersex (or hermaphrodite as she prefers). What’s more, this is the last day of her life.

Carmen, Live or Dead was written...