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reviewAlso in this section: Theatre Guild of Ancon Black Comedy a review by Eric Jackson It has been a few years since the Theatre Guild has presented a play in August. Moreover, this was the directorial debut for Ron Leggiere, who has appeared in couple of dozen or so guild productions in acting roles. Plus, the leading man and leading lady in this play were both acting for the first time. And then the leading lady stepped in late, when the person originally cast in that role suddenly had to leave the country. It could have been a recipe for disaster, but “Black Comedy” turned out to be a fun show. A madcap comedy written by Peter Shaffer, it features a cast of stock characters, even stereotypical ones, in a weird situation prompted by a moral lapse aggravated by a power outage. There is the struggling artist whose desperation for a break gets the better of him (Amit Nathani); his new girlfriend who’s whiny, ambitious and ethically challenged (Jade Newman); his old girlfriend (Rosa Alterio) who walked out and now has second thoughts; the new girlfriend’s blustery retired military officer father (Robert Joy); the swishy gay next door neighbor (Alec Sherman); the teetotaler upstairs neighbor who gets drunk (Cassandra Joy); the philosophical German refugee electrician (Bernard Callaghan) and the world’s richest man (Liborio Garcia-Correa). Now there will surely be people who find the mannerisms of an effeminate homosexual or a professed non-drinker’s drunkenness decidedly unfunny, and others who find it hard to suspend disbelief and imagine a set on which the actors can be seen to be plunged into total darkness. But this is zany comedy with a British flavor, not social commentary in the American political minefield. To this reviewer, Nathani is a promising new talent for this country’s English-language theater and Theatre Guild veteran Callaghan put in the night’s best supporting performance. Understand as well that a performance at the Guild is not just what happens on the stage, and that possibly for the organization’s future vitality the ad sales effort by John Carlson and Gale Cellucci may have been the most brilliant show of all, because their work went a long way toward putting the 55-year-old theater group on a more solid financial basis. Understand that although the two dozen or so people who worked on this play but didn’t appear onstage are mostly unmentioned in this review, they all played essential roles; and that you need not be an actor to lend a hand to this worthy cultural project. To see where you might fit in at the Theatre Guild of Ancon, contact them by email at info@theaterguildpanama.com. As these words were written, there were three more showings of Black Comedy scheduled, on August 11, 12 and 13, at 8 p.m. on all nights. The first week’s productions were all reasonably well attended --- another good sign for this important institution of Panama’s English-speaking community --- but not nearly sold out. You can call 212-0060 to make reservations for one of the final three performances, but the odds are that if you make a last-minute decision to attend the play there will be a seat available for you.
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