Farce Fights Battle of the Sexes All Over Again

Guess what? Men and women are at war. The battle is ongoing, and the most lethal weapon in the field is raw sex, and plenty of it.

Antonio Serrano’s “Sex, Sweat and Tears,” presented by Grupo de Teatro Sinergia at the Frida Kahlo Theater, makes that point early on and bludgeons it home for the next 21/2 hours.

By all accounts, Serrano’s muddled farce was a huge commercial hit in Mexico and later inspired a film. Perhaps the problem has to do partially with the English translation by Eve Muller and Liane Schirmer. (Spanish performances are scheduled on alternate weekends.) Or maybe Ruben Amavizca’s histrionic staging blows the production’s already overloaded circuits.

One suspects, however, that the real problem is in the writing, which attempts to be cutting-edge but is so fantastically retro in its pronouncements on gender that it would make a Doris Day film festival seem fiercely feminist by comparison.

The play presents parallel stories about two troubled relationships. Carlos (Ricardo Rocha), a struggling writer, is on the outs with his significant other, Ana (Azalia Correa, alternating with Patricia Lesley Gold). Next door, Miguel (Gabriel Romero) and Andrea (Minerva Trujillo) are also spatting with a vengeance. When Andrea’s old friend Tomas (Armando Valdes) and Miguel’s former flame Maria (Glenda Torres) arrive for simultaneous visits, tensions flare and the two households erupt into open combat. Disgusted by the gender wars, the men and women take the drastic step of living separately and swearing off all sex--but their experiment in celibacy is short-lived.

Amavizca’s willing--and frequently nude--cast charges up Serrano’s blind alley with brio, if not expertise. Amavizca’s set and multimedia elements are ambitious and well-rendered, but Robert Fromer’s lighting is strangely Stygian, and the occasional joke or two about “rolling blackouts’ doesn’t explain why much of the action is conducted in near-darkness.

“Sex, Sweat and Tears,” Frida Kahlo Theater, 2332 W. 4th St., Los Angeles. Performances in English Aug. 9-12, 23-26. Performances in Spanish Aug. 2-5, 16-19, 30-31 and Sept. 1-2. Ends Sept. 2. $12. (213) 382-8133. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.