If you’ve never been to Teatro de la Luna, it is the definition of a small theater in DC, and its Casa de la Luna is a great space for a tightly-knit story that’s sure to shock you. Attending La Cría on the theater’s “Luna Night,” being greeted by staff with the assumption I spoke Spanish and getting along as best as I could until they realized that I’m a critic, I found the theater to be a wonderful community-driven space, making for an entertaining night even while witnessing a scary story.
La Cría (The Creature) by Carlos Talancón is a creepy monster story and domestic drama in which a wife and husband known only as Mujer (Ixchel Hernández) and Hombre (Edwin Bernal) care for a Creature like it’s their child. Hombre is tired and wants them to release the Creature. But Mujer believes the Creature could be their key to salvation, even though it’s insatiably hungry and emits gross substances. When the Creature is discovered by an Examinador (Marco Echeverría) of few words, they must decide whether the world is ready for him. This show lives in a survivalist world of weird wonder and strange charm, filled with uncanny psychological twists that a thoughtful theatergoer, willing to follow a show in Spanish with captions, can love.
Bernal and Hernández excellently pull off what is mostly a two-hander, leaning into their characters’ insanity. Even as both make no sense at all (run AWAY from the monster child and stop caring for it!), they believe in what they are doing with so much conviction. Bernal’s Hombre is cautious of the Creature, yet also has a sense of machismo in his treatment of Mujer. Hernández’s ability to be a sweet, playful partner to Hombre and a haunting protector all at once makes her a standout. Audiences can laugh at the circumstances in the way one laughs in the face of despair, as a coping mechanism for discomfort.
Interesting shadow work in the set (designed by Bernal) heightens this story’s questions of the unknown, as Bernal and Hernández occasionally walk behind a scrim upstage when they visit the Creature in the attic, where their shadows can make them appear bigger than they really are. Ominous lighting moments (Ricardo de la Vega Domínguez) accent Hernández’s monologues about how the creature has driven her over the edge; she’s positively haunting while recounting under teal lighting how the creature hurt her. The soundscape also does heavy lifting in maintaining the creepy vibes, with music and realistic sound effects (Bienvenido Martínez) right out of a scary movie.
In the script, there could be a bit more about how this first started. The cyclical nature of this couple being continually drawn to monsters who they worship even though they know they will be destroyed hits strongly at the end, but less in the beginning. What we do see speaks volumes. It’s for anyone who cares so much for their child, they will give them everything, even pieces of themselves … quite literally.
It’s interesting for a Latine theater to be doing a story like this, when for so many immigrant cultures, our ancestors came here for a better life. The idea of “giving all we have to the next generation” manifesting in goriness is wack. Here, it’s a cautionary tale that you could go insane from wanting better, that those who you love could hurt you, that you could lose yourself. The loss of identity and disregard of self-preservation as a whole is just as scary as the physical body horror.
Esta obra de teatro requiere fuerza y sacrificio. Se dice: Ten fé … pero no más de esta mujer y hombre. (This work of theater demands strength and sacrifice. It says: Have faith … but no more than this man and woman.)
Running Time:
La Cría (The Creature) plays through November 22, 2026, presented by Teatro de la Luna at Casa de la Luna, 4020 Georgia Avenue NW, Washington, DC. Purchase tickets ($30 regular; $25 students and seniors 60+) by phone (202-882-6227), by email (info@teatrodelaluna.org), or online.
In Spanish with English surtitles.
La Cría (The Creature)
de / by Carlos Talancón
CAST
Mujer: Ixchel Hernández
Hombre: Edwin Bernal
Examinador: Marco Echeverría
CREATIVE
Dirección / Directed by Edwin Bernal
Traducción al Ingles / English Translation by Carlos Talancón
Set design by Edwin Bernal
Sound design by Bienvenido Martínez
Lighting design by Ricardo de la Vega Domínguez
