review

The International School of Panama has a theater program that's blessed by some outstanding teachers and a deep pool of student talent that has some exceptional individuals on the top. This, a musical adaptation of the ugly duckling story, was the swan song at ISP for the biggest star we didn't see onstage, musical director Luis Zuñiga, who's moving on to teach at another school.

His most outstanding student, Charolotte Arnoux, is a tenth grader so she'll be back. Local English-language theater fans should be grateful, and talent raiders from Panama's adult theater troupes should be on this girl's trail.

Arnoux's acting was solid but her musical performance as Ida, the mother duck, was truly moving and clearly the best of many good performances in this show. If show biz is what she wants to do with her life, Arnoux has all the talent it takes and deserves all the luck. ISP is giving her a tremendous start on the education.

Gabriel García de Paredes played the title ugly duckling role in another of his string of good acting performances that this time included a musical solo.

Again, like in the ISP's Jungle Book Kids, Gemma Turnbull played the heavy. Ah, but this cat played with her food a bit too much, which was great for the audience and lucky for the ugly duckling, but cost her a meal. This was another strong performance. It isn't quite the ISP style, but maybe one of these days the Theatre Guild will go out on a limb and adapt the punk rock movie Reform School Girls to the stage, and in that case we might get an opportunity to see Turnbull sharpen her bad girl skills for our entertainment. (However, I am not holding my breath waiting for this to happen.)

Cassidy Levine was the foxy swan who got the ugly duckling in the end. But of Levine's three small parts, it was reporter Maggie Pie that was outstanding. To a mild mannered reporter who grew up on DC Comics it may be the Lois Lane analogy that first comes to mind, but for many years I was in range of Canadian TV, a big fan of The Journal and then also a fan of the Canadian Sesame Street character Barbara Plum, who was based on the news show's anchor. A bit of purple makeup and some lessons on regional pronunciations of "schedule," "lieutenant" and "about," and Levine's Maggie Pie would have been transformed into the ultimate Barbara Plum.

Katie Gundle is only in middle school? And the choreographer who arranged the flock of geese that she led, Ana Quijano, is still a high school kid? Both of those girls and their performances are noteworthy, the latter not only for her choreography but for two bit acting roles, the one as the bullfrog the more outstanding.

I caught one of the last performances, when the kids were well into the routine, and I didn't notice any particular errors. I did notice a lot of good performances, and although the ones I mention here were the ones that impressed me the most, I must again note that the ISP drama program is a deep talent pool and the performances were solid from top to bottom.

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