All bets are off when a sextet of native and transplanted Topangans get together for a couples’ dinner in the aftermath of the Palisades Fire in Bernardo Cubría’s The People Of Pompeii, as laugh-out-loud funny as it is deeply perceptive of the political, economic, and social divides that polarize us and the humanity that binds us together.

Hosting the party are Texas-bred Mexican American writer Carlos (Cubría) and his New Yorker wife Vera (Cubría’s real-life wife Lauren Saffa), who took advantage of Vera’s generational wealth to move into the once entirely bohemian, now significantly gentrified community.

The downside of this move, for Carlos at least, has come from seeing his young son studying not with “Pacos” and “Jamals” but with classmates named “Chakra” and “Forest” and “Frequency,” and when you add to that his survivors’ guilt at seeing his neighbors’ homes burnt to the ground while his and Vera’s remains standing, it’s no wonder Carlos is beginning to think that the only reason they’re there instead of living in a community he could actually call home is that his pandemic-fried brain saw only the “mirage of space and dope-ass views.”

Free spirit Juniper (Willow Geer) and her recovering addict husband Evan (Aaron Hendry), on the other hand, are lifelong Topangans who’ve stuck around through more than four decades of change while watching their now school-aged daughters Amethyst and Opal grow up amidst nature and natural disasters.

Completing the evening’s guest list are wellness-obsessed social butterfly Mel (Amber Luallen), who gave birth to Runyon Bloom (gender yet to be determined) at an Airbnb in Santa Barbara (sorry, make that Montecito) as the fires blazed seventy-five miles south and her tech-wealthy Cybertruck Bro husband Blake (Jon Sprik) opted to stay behind and help (or hinder, depending on whom you ask) the firefighters because he “didn’t trust Karen fucking Bass to protect us.”

And if this weren’t already an incendiary mix likely to catch fire sometime during the evening’s festivities, that’s without even taking into consideration the Pandora’s Box of secrets about to be revealed once the men have ingested mushroom chocolates and the women munched on the dark Peruvian cacao and goji berries blended with placenta that Mel’s doula prepared for her immediately after baby Runyon’s birth.

Cubría’s play may be Topanga-specific, but it could just as easily take place in any gentrified community located in a potential disaster zone, and the characters he has created may be drawn from his own experiences as a Mexican American immigrant, but I expect you could find them anywhere that relatively new Americans live side by side with those who’ve been here for generations.

Add to that the incisive way Cubría takes the idea that “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus” and runs with it, in particular in a scene that ricochets back and forth between the guys out barbecuing in the back yard and the gals doing some living room bonding indoors, and you’ve got something quite special indeed.

Under Xochitl Romero and Ellen Geer’s incisive direction, there’s not a weak link in the entirely fabulous cast, from Cubría’s deeply conflicted Carlos to Saffa’s warm and cool-headed Vera (hard to believe this is essentially Saffa’s acting debut) to Hendry’s on-the-verge-of-a-meltdown Evan to Willow Geer’s proud-to-be-a-local Juniper to Sprik’s loose cannon of a Blake to Luallen’s more-Topangan-than-the-Topangans Mel.

The People Of Pompeii is also one of the most gorgeous productions I’ve seen at Theatricum, the site’s permanent set elaborately decorated to give us Carlos and Vera’s expansive upscale home and its outdoor patio as well, and Hayden Kirschbaum’s lighting could not be more stunning or dramatic.

Add to that Vicki Conrad’s pitch-perfect costumes, Lucas Fehring’s delectable sound design mix of EDM and Chappell Roan, and an uncredited Hendry’s knock-down, drag-out fight choreography and you’ve got one of the best Theatricum Botanicum season closers ever.

Delightful child actor Anay Den (Italian Child at the performance reviewed) alternates with Ailbie Millar in the 11th-hour cameo. Beth Eslick is wardrobe supervisor. Karen Osborne is stage manager and Darby Huffaker is assistant stage manager. Lucy Pollak is publicist.

There could be no better or more entertaining tribute to the community Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum has called home for the past fifty-three years than Bernardo Cubría’s The People Of Pompeii. It does The People Of Topanga proud.

Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga. Through October 4. See website for performance dates and times.
www.theatricum.com

–Steven Stanley
September 5, 2026
Photos: Ian Flanders

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Tags: Bernardo Cubría, Los Angeles Theater Review, Theatricum Botanicum