Topanga residents are well aware of how special and tight-knit our community can be, and yet we don’t always openly acknowledge the potential difficulties of finding your people amidst your neighbors. Our beautiful mountains can hold a community that feels like family for some, but for others, especially newer residents, Topanga can feel isolating in its separation from the rest of the world. The pandemic brought new folks to the Canyon, and we’ve learned that our little pocket of nature appeals to a wide spectrum of people.
For longtime residents, watching our home change and evolve before our eyes can be sad, or bittersweet. Topanga isn’t what it used to be; some of us have still been to Pat’s Topanga Grill more times than Café on 27. On top of all the change, last year served as a stark reminder that fire risk and frequent road closures continue to call into question, for many, whether Topanga is worth the inconvenience and the risk; or if it would perhaps be smarter and safer to leave the magical place we are so grateful to call home.
In 2021, a year into the pandemic, Bernardo Cubría and his wife, Lauren Saffa, moved to Topanga. Cubría is a Mexican-born writer and actor who grew up in Houston. He has lived in New York, and Santa Monica, and has now found a home with his wife and young children in Topanga. During the fires in January of 2025, Cubría began to write.
“I’ve always processed the world through writing,” he told me, “…that’s just how I know how to do it.” What came from his processing of the traumatic evacuations last year, is a powerful social commentary on our beloved Topanga Canyon in the form of a play. Cubría’s play is a vulnerable and confronting love letter to our community, to our little pocket of nature, based on Cubría’s own personal experience of learning to fall in love with Topanga.
I met Bernardo Cubría at Topanga Living Cafe (or TLC) to chat with him about his play, The People of Pompeii, which is currently featured as part of Theatricum Botanicum’s 2026 repertory lineup. He described TLC as basically his office, telling me it’s actually where he wrote most of the play. It’s the same building where I got my first job, about 13 years ago, as a volunteer at Topanga Fresh, the bright yellow cafe/market that TLC used to be. Cubría moved to the Canyon right after I moved out, so our experiences of Topanga are very different, but they both shine with a deep recognition of how fortunate we’ve been to be able to call these mountains home.
When Bernardo Cubría first found his way to theatre he started as an actor, but eventually transitioned to playwriting. “At first I was an actor for a very long time in New York, and I just got frustrated with the lack of agency I had and what was being said to the world,” he explained. “When I was in New York, most of the Latino plays that were being done were about narcos, and that’s a subject I hate, and didn’t really want to be doing.”
Cubría credits a friend of his, Mando, for giving him the advice that “…if you want to have artistic control, you have to be a writer.” Cubría wrote his first play when he was around 26 or 27, and has written many more since, but writing has always been a part of his life. As a child, Cubría was heavily influenced by his grandmother who was a poet. He spent his summers at her house in Mexico, and has memories of watching her and her writers’ group of close friends with glowing admiration. Cubría himself has been writing poetry since elementary school. “Now looking back on my life, I was always writing… A lot of poetry. I still write poetry.”
Knowing that The People of Pompeii is based on his own truth, I asked Cubría how fictionalized the play is, and how he was able to balance fact with fiction when writing such a personal piece.
“I guess emotionally it’s all kind of true,” he said “And then there are things you have to do for each character, including myself and my wife…to strengthen it. There are many times as we’re doing the play where I want to turn out to the audience and go ‘I don’t actually think this!’ or ‘I don’t think anyone here is like that guy in that moment, but in this moment yes!’ It’s very nuanced.”
For Cubría, it was very important that the play was based on himself and Lauren, his wife. It’s the story of their relationship to Topanga. He believes that the other characters in the show represent different versions of all of us—including himself. “…I see myself in every single one of those people. Really…I don’t think I could write them if they weren’t aspects of my personality. Parts I’m embarrassed about, parts I’m proud of… To me, [the play] is about the emotional truth of what happened after the fires. And, frankly…about me learning to fall in love with Topanga.”
The People of Pompeii is strikingly intimate to watch as someone who grew up in the Canyon; it is truly a must-see for all current and past Topanga residents. The dark comedy follows a group of six Topangans (three couples) getting together for a dinner party in the aftermath of the Palisades fire evacuations. Cubría wasn’t planning on himself and his wife acting in his play, but Ellen Geer (co-director along with Xochitl Romero) changed his mind.
“Ellen turned to me and said ‘I want you and your wife to do it…I think it will be more meaningful to this community if both of you stand up there.’ And it was so scary! And when things really scare me, I feel like you have to do them as an artist.”
Bernardo Cubría and his wife Lauren Saffa play the lead couple, Carlos and Vera, who moved to the Canyon not too long ago. Although Vera loves Topanga, her new friends, and the community she has entered into, Carlos is still unsure. He misses his old friends, his old community, and is struck by the lack of diversity in the Canyon, feeling out of place as a Latino in a largely white population.
Willow Geer and Aaron Hendry play the second couple, Juniper and Evan, who are longtime Topanga residents, frustrated by the gentrification of their home in recent years. Juniper and Evan are struggling financially, and maritally (and Evan is struggling with his sobriety), but they have built a real friendship with Carlos and Vera.
Amber Luallen and Jon Sprik play Mel and Blake, the third couple. Mel and Blake have wholeheartedly adopted the aesthetics of Topanga despite only having moved here since the pandemic (like Carlos and Vera). They are wealthy, wellness-minded, and differ from the other two couples a bit in their politics, creating engaging and relatable tension throughout the show. The play takes place all in one night, at Vera and Carlos’ home, post-evacuations. Although the show has a run time of only 1 hour and 20 minutes, a Topanga audience is sure to see each character with a deep understanding, because we know these people; we are these people.
Cubría admitted to me that the play has transformed drastically from its original state as a rough draft. “A huge part of what built this play was doing readings of bad versions of this piece for community members here. [This] helped me see things that I [didn’t] know about this community, because I am one of the new people here. I’m one of the gentrifiers I call out in the play—and I’m calling myself out!”
Cubría mentions Aaron Hendry (who plays Evan in The People of Pompeii) as one of the locals who sparked a big change in Cubría’s mindset about Topanga and thus, sparked important changes in the play during the process of rewriting. “One of my biggest complaints living here was about the traffic, and the constant construction, and how inconvenienced I felt. And then Aaron Hendry…post-fires, posted this very long screed [aimed at] Topanga locals, and to be frank, I felt called out, it felt like he was talking about me and my own…privilege. And I started feeling like ‘oh fuck, he’s right. Topanga’s not convenient, and I’m an idiot that I thought I was moving to a convenient place.’”
Right at this moment in our conversation, still sitting on the outdoor patio of TLC, Cubría starts coughing. “Sorry, a bug just flew into my mouth. Oh my God, Topanga!” We laugh. “Inconvenient!” I say, emphasizing his point.
I asked Cubría if his writing is always so personal as this play is for him. He said that yes, he tends to write a lot about his fears, and existential dread. Things that mean a lot to him. He also said he writes: “…a lot about being a Latino in this country. That is just something that is front of mind at all times, especially in the country that we’re in right now…I write about the things that keep me up at night, that’s just who I am.” In our current political climate, our country needs perspectives like Bernardo Cubría’s—especially in Topanga. With The People of Pompeii, Cubría holds up a much-needed mirror to the Theatricum Botanicum audience; showing us ourselves, our flaws, and our strengths. Do yourself and your neighbors a favor, and go to see the play; come for the relevancy, stay for the interpretive dance, and leave with a resolve to reach out to that friend you’d like to get closer to, make that plan. Because we are all in this together.
