Woody Allen play comes to town

PANAMA. “Writer’s Block,” a comedy written by Woody Allen, will be playing on March 5 – 14 at the only English theatre in Panama, The Guild.

The 2003 production, with its two one-act plays: Old Saybrook and Riverside Drive , marked the stage directing debut for Allen, playing off-Broadway and selling out during its entire run.

According to The New York Times review, “..."Writer's Block'' sits dead center in the Woody Allen universe, a New York City-centric place where beautiful young women are unaccountably attracted to much older men, and more significantly where relatively affluent people grapple comically and paranoiacally with serious questions of love and lust, artistic and financial achievement, and the possibility of happiness given the inevitability of death.”

Riverside Drive focuses on a married screenwriter who is meeting his girlfriend on a park bench overlooking the Hudson River.

Jim, the writer, is going to break off the affair. Yet, before the woman arrives, he encounters Fred, a demented homeless man.

You know he's demented from the things that occasionally interrupt the conversation, like his receiving radio signals from the Empire State Building.

Jim is in desperate need of a game plan to disentangle himself from the persistent young lady. In a twinkling, Fred announces, "You need someone who can light a fire. I'm an idea man."

Just how big his ideas are never quite becomes clear until the end of the play.

Riverside Drive is slight fare and there is a particularly sour finish to all the harangues that dominate the play.

Critics believed there was more comic promise in Old Saybrook , set in the gracious Connecticut shore community. Two wealthy couples are spending a quiet Sunday together. And then the doorbell rings. Not a bad beginning for any play.

Allen sets up their relationships before complications set in. The key players are a dentist and his wife, plus a plastic surgeon and his helpmate, who also happens to be the sister of the dentist's wife. Got that?

Their idyllic time is interrupted by a young couple who arrive to look at the home, which they once owned.

Through an unlikely plot convention, it is discovered that the dentist is having an affair with his sister-in-law. Accusations ensue, prompting the appearance of a seventh character who takes the play in a whole different direction.

Enjoy these witty, thought-provoking stories performed by a cast of ten talented actors directed by Kimberly Hall and produced by Amit Nathani.

Only six performances will take place on March 5th, 6th, 7th, 12th, 13th and 14th at 8:00 p.m. at the Theatre Guild of Ancon, located next to the Ancon DIJ (formerly PTJ). Donation: $10.00. For reservations call 212-0060.