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Baño de Luna Tackles Temptation, Celibacy, and Drama

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Temptation is a topic that will never go out of style considering how we all struggle with it every day. It’s that terrible impulse that arises within us. We have no control as it nests in the chest, concentrates in the eyes, and becomes incitement. It’s the stimulus that compels us to cross the line between what is permitted and what is prohibited. We are caught between uncontrolled desire threatening to become a volcano and an inescapable morality that does not exonerate. Is it true that we are all tempted to cross the line between what is tolerated and what is clandestine?

Temptation is the central plot of Baño de Luna (Bathing in Moonlight), the new play at GALA Hispanic Theater in Columbia Heights. It is the story of Father Monroe (Raúl Méndez), a Roman Catholic priest, who falls in love with one of his parishioners, Marcela (Hannia Guillén).

Celibacy has long been a controversial topic within the Catholic Church, which first barred priests from matrimony and sexual relations in the year 1123, during the papacy of Pope Benedict VIII. Ever since, multiple efforts have failed to overturn the celibacy rule: Recent cases include a 2011 open letter by hundreds of German, Austrian, and Swiss theologians. In a 2017 interview, Pope Francis said he was open to the idea. Though little progress was made at the time, earlier this year the Pope reiterated his desire to reexamine the question of priestly celibacy.

Written and directed by Pulitzer Prize winner Nilo Cruz, Bathing in Moonlight explores the issue of celibacy. The play is a reflection on morality and immorality, but also on the moment in which love, a sacred emotion, is transformed into something dirty, censored, sinful, and frowned-upon. Father Monroe—indeed named after that Hollywood starlet Marilyn Monroe—falls madly in love with Marcela, his parishioner, whom he lets play the church’s piano after mass. She is a good Catholic and a single mother who takes care of Doña Martina (Luz Nicolás), her mother, and Trino (Victor Salinas), her adolescent son, as well as a mortgaged house that’s a bit big for the three of them. Doña Martina suffers from senile dementia. Trino plays dumb. Marcela is left to run the house, selling hats to support the family with the secret help of Father Monroe, with whom she also meets in secret. The priest is a 48-year-old man, a virgin in priestly vestments. He has some money set aside and is tired of denigrating his love for Marcela as something clandestine and reduced to mere lust.

When Marcela’s long-lost brother, Taviano (Hiram Delgado), turns up, the drama increases along with the problems facing this Cuban family living in Florida. Doña Martina’s eldest son bears a close resemblance to his father. He’s also the bearer of the family’s hopes and dreams, but he’s turned out a failure, a good-for-nothing who could not finish his medical degree. A cynic who took money from Martina to pay for nonexistent studies, he’s also to blame for the loss of Marcela’s piano, as it was sold to pay his tuition.



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