El Veredicto
a play by Juan David Morgan and Ernesto Endara
directed by Eugenio Fernández
with Fernando Díaz hijo, José Carranza,
Diana Román de Díaz, Maritza Diez de Morales,
Marko, Carlos Bromley, Luigi Lescure,
Edgar Sánchez, Lupita de Briceño,
Arturo Arango, Delia Cortés, Renán Fernández
and Martín Porto
“El Veredicto” is a Spanish-language audience participation play. Nevertheless, I heard a fair amount of English in the theater --- both Panama’s English-speaking community and its better educated Hispanic theater fans tend to be bilingual these days.
The play unravels in the form of a trial, at the end of which the audience votes about whether to convict or acquit Philippe Bunau-Varilla for corruption and high treason. Revealing the result of the vote on my night would be something akin to solving a mystery in a review, so I’ll restrain myself.
Of course, to really try such a case would take many days to do properly. Instead we get a summary trial, ably argued by José Carranza as prosecutor and Diana Román de Díaz as defense counsel, with Marko in the defendant’s dock and Maritza Diez de Morales presiding. All of this central cast performed admirably, as did the witnesses. If one needs to divide things along the tradition of leading man, leading lady and everyone else as a supporting character, then the best actor, actress, supporting actor and supporting actress honors would be divided among these four. That, however, would slight some very good witness roles, starting with Delia Cortés as Thelma King and Martín Porto as Omar Torrijos.
As someone with a bit of education and experience in the law, let me make a few observations about this case.
First, just because there are accomplices is no defense. It’s politically incorrect to point the finger at the founders of the Panamanian republic who ratified the Hay - Bunau-Varilla Treaty, and facile to say that if they’re not in the dock, then Bunau-Varilla is blameless.
Second, an agent’s conflict of interest is always a warning flag. When undisclosed it‘s reprehensible per se, but even when well known as it was in Bunau-Varilla’s case it creates a much higher duty of loyalty to the principals, in this case the Panamanian people.
Third --- and this is something that did not come out in the play, but is an historical fact --- when evidence has been destroyed or concealed, it must be presumed to be adverse to the party that suppressed it. The records of the second French canal company of which Bunau-Varilla was a central figure disappeared from a Paris vault, and the financial books of the first eight months of the Republic of Panama’s existence were by law retroactively closed to the public in 1904, with only tiny shreds of evidence surviving to illuminate today’s historical debate.
And there you have the relevance of this timely and excellent play. What are Panamanians going to do about a widespread culture of corruption, in which “everybody does it” is taken as a socially acceptable defense? What are we to do about conflicts of interest that have become institutionalized in both our public and private sectors? When will we make transparency the norm? Those were the issues then, and they are Panama's main challenges now.
In any case, your opinion will count as much as mine if you make it down to the Teatro En Circulo this month, as the show runs through November 30.
Also in this section:
Cool Internet sites
Music, The Rubén Blades centennial concert
Theater, El Veredicto
Film, The Revolution Will Not be Televised
