Devil's Advocate
by Donald Freed

“…there are plenty of interpersonal fireworks exploding between the two characters who bring this two-act work alive.

But the biggest explosions are reserved for the U.S. military, as this production is set during the Yanqui invasion of Panama in 1989, the so-called “Operation Just Cause.”

That duo of aforementioned characters is Archbishop Jose Sebastian Laboa and General Manuel Antonio Noriega.

…the main force generating conflict in DEVIL’S ADVOCATE is none other than politics.

Imperialism, covert actions, narco-trafficking, gun running, terrorism, torture, psyops, money laundering, the Panama Canal, the Contras, Fidel, George H W Bush (hell’s hottest seat is reserved for this evil genius of mediocrity and his satanic son), et al, form the complex backdrop to a fairly simple plot.

During Bush’s invasion of Panama, Noriega flees to the Papal Nuncio, the archbishop’s residence, to seek—in the immortal words of Quasimodo—sanctuary.

There, “Pineapple Face” (as the pockmarked Noriega was derisively called) confesses his “sins” to Laboa, who—as the Vatican’s Grand Inquisitor—served, literally, as the eponymous “Devil’s Advocate.”

Ed Rampell, Hollywood Progressive