“SHIT! PETROLEUM! FREEDOM!” chants the cast of Methusalem, or the Eternal Bourgeois at the height of the play’s first revolution. By the end the audience has joined in on both the chanting and the party. Written by French-German surrealist Yvon Goll, the play is set in a vaguely industrial past, parodying capitalism with a stream of absurdities.

For director Ted Witzel, Goll’s text was only the starting point for the play’s absurdity, to which he’s made a number of adjustments. He’s transformed the production into a blowout of reinterpretation by replacing a few of Goll’s characters with robots (including hookerbot, who comes complete with a steel wool muff), adding unitards and glitter, and parodying modern-day radicalism. Monitored and controlled by a cadre of communist agents who sell Che Guevara t-shirts to the audience before the show (“Free with a $20 donation to the cause”), the players shout out light cues as the actors say their lines onstage.

To top it all off, Methusalem is hilarious. The cast members sport their punchlines like costumes, drenched in facial expression, body language, and vocal pitch. They break the fourth wall, but only to let the audience in on the joke, throwing props into the audience. (Sitting in the second row, I caught a shoebox, revolutionary cardboard sign, and a few items of clothing.)

It’s clear that the actors are trying to get the audience to become radical communists, feeding into the subtext of irony on which the play rests. The play avoids preachiness because its message—the absurdity of politics—takes a backseat to pure entertainment.

The Red Light District players are current or former U of T students, and they deliver a gem of wry comedy. You’ll giggle every time Lauren Gillis hits her cowbell and recites poetry, or when Reid Linforth dances with his face lit up. You’ll guffaw at Marcel Dragonieri’s obtuse rants and Briana Templeton’s nervous ones. And you’ll appreciate the Commie tendencies of Jiv Parasram, Kat Letwin, and others who walk the line somewhere between working, acting, and advertising for the Learning Achievement Centre.

All things considered, Methusalem lives up to the manifesto of the Red Light District (printed on the back of the program) and its three most important tenets: “We will not make theatre for your grandparents,” “We will not honour the text,” and, most importantly, “We will not bore you.”

Methusalem runs January 14 to 17 at the Whippersnapper Gallery, 587A College St. West. Tickets are $15, doors are at 7:30 p.m.