Culture

BWAHAHAHA! A mad doctor Christmas comedy by the Guild!

November 28, 2016

mad dopctor — Your garden variety mad doctor might be one of those boring and banal guys who wants to conquer the world. The cooler ones want to DESTROY the world. But isn’t it the same thing, if one wants to destroy Christmas? Naaaah — this guy just wants to be rich and famous.

If you’re only in it for the money, don’t cross the elves’ picket line

a review by Eric Jackson

Aren’t we forgeting the true meaning of Christmas? You know, the birth of Santa.

Matt Groening

We Jews believe it was Santa Claus that killed Jesus Christ.

Kinky Friedman

“Christmas Stopping” is a fun comedy by the Theatre Guild, a play with two casts and a substitute leading man after a medical emergency sidelined the original actor for that role. That there are two casts meant that this reporter didn’t see both of them perform at the one matinee performance — save for joint pre-show warm-ups and the other cast among the Christmas carolers during the intermission. In the larger scheme of things it also means that the Guild is growing so that more artists are learning and practicing their crafts in this, Panama’s oldest theatrical organization.

The cast I saw was Rob Getman, who plays the obsessed shrink and writer in both line-ups, MJ Rojas as the flaky daughter, Carlos Alemán as the loutish son, and Dayana Moreno as the long-suffering hippie wife and stepmother. It was well performed all the way around but to this reporter it seemed that Moreno gave the best performance.

The son of a mad doctor, a mad political scientist, a writer off on a weird tangent — those are life experiences to which this reporter can relate. THIS mad doctor, however, surely lacks a membership card for the Mad Scientists Union whose militant geniuses make Spiderman’s life interesting. He’s such a scab that he offends the elves’ unions. Surely in the more enlightened jurisdictions medical marijuana is an indicated prescription drug for someone married to such a creature.

So can the family survive the doctor’s obsession, his adult kids’ weirdness and the awful pressures of the holiday season? Go see the answer at the Ancon Theater, next door to the DIJ and across from the farmers’ market, at 8 p.m. shows on December 1st, 2nd and 3rd, with a 4 p.m. matinee on Saturday the 3rd.

**The family flake — she’s a believer.**

lout — **She’s thinking of getting back together with HIM, the doctor’s son? The fool!**

Sancho Panza's many times great grnad-niece — **And what fresh Hell is THIS?**

**Christmas carols on the front porch during intermission.**

**Co-director Ingrid MacCartney leads both casts through pre-show exercises.**

Christmas Stopping

a comedy written by James Rayfiled
directed by Keitha Kushner & Ingrid MacCartney
produced by Gale Cellucci & Ramona Rhoades
Cast 1: Rob Getman, Dayana Moreno, Carlos Alemán & MJ Rojas
Cast 2: Rob Getman, Tevia Brooks, Michael Lindo & Andrea Marchosky
Also pitching in for various production roles: Levys Mon, Relaine Winslow, Rafael Leonardo & Maria Emma Faria