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Middle class fantasies, in the seasonal style

by Eric Jackson

On November 23 the Theatre Guild of Ancon's Christmas play, an adaptation of Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life" directed by Catherine Hopkins, opened to a half-full house. This year's English-language theater season has been disrupted by war and economic hard times, and this play has not been as well publicized as most of the Theatre Guild's productions have been, above all because the previous work was postponed when the Dallas Morning News called up one of the leading men, Tod Robberson, for war correspondent duty. That meant that an important part of the group's usual advertising strategy, the announcement of the next event in the previous one's playbill, didn't happen.

Those who did show up for the play saw a good show for their money, and those who didn't will have several more opportunities to see it. "It's a Wonderful Life is playing on the Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays of two successive weekends, those of November 23-25 and November 30-December 2.

This is the flashback tale, set in the 1940s, of a small-time savings and loan operator in trouble, George Bailey (Patrick Casal), who is convinced not to jump off a bridge by his guardian angel (second class) Clarence Odbody (Artie Pollock). It's a tale of a capitalist with a heart who provides working people with opportunities that the antagonist, financial robber baron Henry Potter (Ron Leggiere) would like to foreclose. It's a family tale, with George Bailey's sweetheart and wife, Mary Hatch (Holly Parker) in therole of leading lady.

It's also a family production in another sense, with a number of parents and children in the cast. For one example, while International School of Panama senior Holly Parker plays the a starring role, her mother Linda Parker plays the protagonist's mother, while young Jacob Parker plays a newsboy. Similarly, the Robberson, Stempel and McMiller families have multiple cast members.

This is community theatre in a little country whose English-speaking community includes 15,000 to 20,000 American citizens and several hundred British subjects, not to mention some 200,000 Panamanians of West Indian descent who grew up in English-speaking homes and an even larger section of the population that speaks English as a second language. The Ancon Theatre Guild is not professional, but a number of its members have it in them to make drama their vocation if they so choose. In this play all of the leading roles are well acted and the lighting, sounds and set are well done.

The story itself imparts an uplifting holiday message amidst Panama's difficult economic times. If one chooses to look at the Frank Capra classic through the lenses of social analysis in an isthmian context (which, of course, could never have been intended by its creator), it's not hard to find the ethos of Teddy Roosevelt's Square Deal, wherein the progressive mainstreet small businessman holds out for the public interest against the reactionary wannabe monopolist, or to discern similarities with the kinds of things wannabe president Alberto Vallarino is presently doing at his bank --- exercising forbearance while the competitors are busy with mass foreclosures. All told, and what Capra surely intended, "It's a Wonderful Life" is a celebration of American middle class values.

The Theatre Guild of Ancon is struggling through difficult times like everyone else in Panama, and a road expansion project is about to bring heavier traffic closer to the little wooden theater building's front door. Ah, but life is a wonderful gift - something worth saving - for a community cultural institution as well as for an individual, and the latest production imparts that message more than any other.

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