Victim Impact

At The Cultch until June 17, 2018
Tickets from $10 at tickets.thecultch.com. By donation June 12 and 16

Posted June 12, 2018

If it sounds too good to be true, chances are it’s too good to be true. We’ve heard it all before. But ignorance and human greed being what they are, investors continue to take risks that all too often cost them their life savings. And there will always be those quick to take advantage. What we don’t anticipate is that those fraudsters might be in our own circle of friends, our religious or immigrant community. Or a financial advisor at your credit union.

Victim Impact, written by Tim Carlson and presented by Theatre Conspiracy, is verbatim theatre/documentary drama – that is, the script for much of the ninety minutes is taken directly from victim interviews and court proceedings over time. Based on an actual local Ponzi scheme, Carlson explores the impact on various victims including a young woman and a working-class retiree. All were duped by charming notary public Rashida Samji who is so credibly portrayed by Nimet Kanji you just want her to be incarcerated and the key thrown away.

Victim Impact rolls out a little like Law and Order: the scenes are announced by text projected on a large screen – the time, the place. The factual elements are interesting but the excellent design team – Milton Lim, Conor Moore, Joel Grinke and David Mesiha – makes it great to watch with seven white screens, silhouettes, a steady stream of video projections and sharp lighting effects. Playwright Carlson introduces some humour into the otherwise shocking details of millions of stolen dollars with a vaudevillian introduction to Charles Ponzi and a game show between the bow-tied Trustee and Receiver, both of whom make a whole lot of money while the victims are left waiting for some payback.

Under the capable direction of Jiv Parasram, four performers play all the roles (with the exception of Kanji whose single role is that of Samji, aka the Magic Lady). Jenn Griffin and Allan Morgan play victims as well as lawyers. In their legal roles, Griffin attempts with obvious frustration to extract the truth from wily Samji while Morgan repeatedly quotes the section in the legal code that protects Samji from testifying against herself. You can hear the groans coming from the audience every time he intervenes.

Munish Sharma and Risha Nanda also play victims and lawyers but it’s in the roles of Trustee and Receiver that they are most entertaining as the shocking details of how many investors there were, how much money was bilked out of them, how much money was clawed back and how preciously little the victims were going to receive. Even worse is how much the trustee and the receiver were paid. They grin, they laugh, they appeal to an unseen, applauding audience.

To this day, after an unsuccessful appeal by the now former notary public Rashida Samji, it’s unknown how much money the victims will get after all the legal fees are paid. Millions of dollars have simply disappeared. The retiree has gone back to work. The young woman has lost her nest egg. “Our whole world fell apart.” “I’d like to see Samji go to jail for the rest of her life”. “I want her to hurt the way she made us hurt.” These are the comments of a few of the victims.

Samji was fined thirty-three million dollars by the BC Securities Commission. That money will never be seen; it was a slap on the wrist to ward off others who would attempt a similar scam. She was sentenced to six years in prison, lost on appeal and is eligible for parole in two years.

Victim Impact is a cautionary tale. While RRSPs and GICs aren’t earning a whole lot, they are – more or less – secure. It’s all starting look as if ‘under the mattress’ isn’t such a bad idea.