There was hardly an empty seat at the Theatre Guild of Ancon's December 14 penultimate performance of "Miracle on 34th Street." The campy Christmas classic about how a materialistic society and its legal system relate to an old man who believes he's Santa Claus filled the little wooden theater next to the Fiscalia in Ancon with kids, who were treated to a gem of a performance by leading man Ron Leggiere, with solid supporting roles by usual suspects Lara Petrosky, Tod Robberson, Fiona Robberson and Roberto Bruno, and Guild newcomers Diana Luz Parada, Fred Spielberg and Caroline Ribi. The heavies were Michael Henríquez as the dangerously ill company psychologist and Mike Cellucci as the prosecutor with an underdeveloped sense of propriety. The cast of characters was rounded out with a few more adult bit players and a mob of kids, mainly from the International School of Panama.

The play was ably directed by Catherine Hopkins and ably produced by a committee that revolved around Gale Cellucci.

Taken as a children's play without quibbling over the subtleties of judicial procedure and abnormal psychology, the show worked well enough.

Can the same thing be said about the Theatre Guild?

The house was full, but this play was the group's entire fall season, and thus a major retreat from the significantly busier production schedule that has been maintained over more than half of a century. It seems that money is not the problem, but people to produce, direct, act, build sets, handle the lights and sound and do all the rest of the labor that goes into a theatrical production are the factors in short supply.

Theater people are and will be a special subset of intellectuals, and here we are dealing with Panama's English-speaking minority, which the Legislative Assembly has determined is too small. Let us then look at those involved in this and recent Guild productions, and at the audiences, and consider the organization's relationship to the English-speaking community.

There is a core of Theatre Guild regulars, centered around American expatriates, former Canal Zone people and professionals who speak English as a second language. There is a very strong relationship with the most expensive of Panama's elite English-language schools, the International School of Panama, with lesser but still important ties to several other private schools. There is a relationship between the Guild and Panama's robust (if economically troubled) Spanish-language theater scene, with frequent bilingual crossovers. These are the Theatre Guild of Ancon's great strengths.

The weaknesses are conspicuous by their absence. We know that a lot of the 18- to 25-year-olds of the English-speaking community are away in the States attending universities, and that many of them do not plan to return to the isthmus. But go to any local rock festival, or swing by the Panama campus of Florida State, and you will discover that this subset of our community is not entirely missing from Panama. At the Theatre Guild you see a few black faces in the crowd, but the larger part of this country's English-speaking population, the West Indian community, has little to do with this scene.

The saddest lack, however, is to be perceived in light of the politicians' recent show of concern about Panama's shortage of English-speaking workers. So, apart from the International School, where are the nation's English teachers? Why don't we ever see an English class from a public school or parochial school attending a Theatre Guild performance as a part of their education? How come our university English departments haven't made the connection with the Guild?

I cite these absences not to be negative, but to note where English-language theater might go in search of the reinforcements that it needs. Reaching out to strengthen weak areas is much easier said than done, but there's plenty of time, and the Guild is building from a base that's still strong enough to fill the house for a Christmas play.

Meanwhile, the Theatre Guild of Ancon's stage year continues.

On Friday, January 3, for one night only, the Guild will be presenting a staged reading of "Speed the Plow," a David Mamet comedy about money and morality in Hollywood. Onstage will be Domingo de Obaldia, Tod Robberson and Lara Petrosky, with Catherine Hopkins directing behind the scenes.