Poetics of ‘Mater’ Offset Inconsistencies

As music swells, a shirtless youth and an older woman move slowly toward one another. The woman opens the refrigerator, the youth steps inside. The woman closes the door. Blackout.

It’s a chilling image--no pun intended--to open “Stabat Mater” by Mexican playwright Humberto Leyva. The play, in alternating Spanish and English performances at the Unity Arts Center, abounds with mysterious imagery and cryptic dialogue.

Under all the apparent inaccessibility, the story is surprisingly straightforward. The alcoholic Paula (Maria Wida alternating with Pilar Perez, who does the Spanish performances) is just home from a stint in rehab. Paula’s daughter Carmen (Flavia Saravalli) can’t handle her temperamental mother. Carmen’s pregnant friend Constanza (Minerva Garcia) has more luck broaching Paula’s negativism.

Despite Paula’s denial of anything amiss, her son Daniel (Ruben Amavizca), who stalks through the scenes like an incorporeal kibitzer, has been missing for a year now. But as Carmen suspects, and family friend Mildred (Sara Barrios) knows very well, Daniel isn’t coming back any time soon.

Under Amavizca’s direction, the proceedings alternate between ritualistic austerity and histrionics. These shifts in tone, not to mention some underdeveloped story points about Daniel’s homosexuality and the circumstances of his death, are difficult to reconcile. But Leyva’s poetics and the fierce naturalism of the performers mitigate such inconsistencies and keep things humming. As for Wida, she is a method diva--a crafty old-school actress who flirts with excess but is never seduced by it.

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* “Stabat Mater,” Unity Arts Center, Frida Kahlo Theater, 2332 W. 4th St., Los Angeles. Spanish performances Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m.; this Sunday, 6 p.m. English performance, March 5, 6 p.m. Ends March 5. $12. (213) 382-8133. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.