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The audience is involved in Frida and Diego's one-act theater play "La colomba e l'elefante"

The audience is involved in Frida and Diego's one-act theater play "La colomba e l'elefante"

17 June 2026

LA COLOMBA E L’ ELEFANTE
una visita a casa di Frida Kahlo e Diego Rivera
THE DOVE AND THE ELEPHANT
a visit to the home of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera

We are in the Casa Azul, the large blue-painted house in the Coyoacán neighbourhood of Mexico City, the home where Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera lived together for many, many years. The couple are hosting a reception, and Diego welcomes the audience in the hall as if he were welcoming them into the living room of their own home. Once all the ‘guests’ have taken their seats, Frida will enter.
After a brief introduction and a welcome speech, the couple will kick off the ‘truth game’, during which they will answer a series of questions posed by the guests, some of which may be rather indiscreet. Diego will, in fact, have handed out the questions at the entrance to 10 members of the audience, who will then be called upon to ask them at random throughout the evening. Whether arguing or supporting one another, the couple will answer without ever shying away from the truth. And so we shall discover that Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera – nicknamed ‘the elephant’ and ‘the dove’ due to their physical appearances (Diego Rivera was burly and tall, whilst Frida was petite and delicate) – intertwined their lives and art without holding back, blending them with ideals of justice, political struggles and genius. Serving as their backdrop, an indispensable setting for their story, is a Mexico in the throes of one of the greatest revolutions of the 20th century. Together, Frida and Diego sensed the same social changes, rode the wave of the struggle for democracy alongside peasants who had been exploited for centuries, travelled far and wide, met intellectuals, painted, created and chronicled their era in vivid colours and brilliant oils. And they loved one another, living out one of the most famous and intense love stories in the art world, full of mutual betrayals which they would publicly confess.
We will hear from Frida herself about the sufferings she went through, first due to spina bifida – which the doctors mistook for polio – and then a very serious accident that nearly killed her. But adversity and suffering did not stop her, and by portraying her own body on her canvases, she turned herself into an icon of resistance and struggle. Through her paintings – and even more so through her life – she taught women to demand and claim the freedom to be themselves, to live without pretence, choosing not to conform to convention, living unconventionally without fear of exposing physical and psychological pain, love, sexuality and politics. An intense, moving and captivating show that tells the story of Frida Kahlo’s art and life, which continue to fascinate and inspire the whole world.