‘Bathing in Moonlight’ Review: Moonstruck
Bathing in Moonlight (★★★☆☆), takes the road of least controversy to depict a relatively tame love that dare not speak its name between a devout pianist and her priest.Under Cruz’s bold direction of GALA Hispanic Theatre’s Spanish-language D.C. premiere, Hannia Guillén, as dutiful daughter and mom Marcela, and Raúl Méndez, as passionate Padre Monroe, still generate the heat of two bodies burning to be together but fighting their urges.The padre even delivers a sermon about laying down barriers to love, before embarking on his perilous path of questioning why those barriers exist in the first place.Cruz fuses elements of poetry, history, theology, and surreal dream imagery to serve the well-acted romantic melodrama, which often turns on a mere glance or lingering touch.