STAGE WEST: "Fragment/o/s Of Air/e" at OnStage Playhouse

Valerie Vega and Lester Isariuz in "Fragment/o/s Of Air/e."                                       Photo by Daren Scott

            Performances don’t come much braver than Valerie Vega’s in the world premiere of Carla Navarro’s “Fragment/o/s Of Air/e” at OnStage Playhouse in Chula Vista. Vega plays Chilean-born Nina who with her husband Armando (Arturo Medina) and the child she’s carrying fled her native country during the human-rights horrors of the Pinochet regime.
            But some things cannot be run away from, and it’s in the telling of Nina’s story and the profound and painful scars inflicted upon her body, her psyche and her soul that Vega’s courage and Nina’s become one.
            As the play directed by James Darvas opens, Nina sits alone in the living room of her San Diego home. She awaits the arrival of her daughter Chivi (Maya Sofia Enciso), her son Flaco (Lester Isariuz) and her now ex-husband. It’s 2005 and they’re gathering to watch a debate from Chile that could be historic: A Socialist Party candidate – and a woman – (Michelle Bachelet) is squaring off against Nationalist Renewal Party candidate Sebastian Pinera.
            The loud barking of a dog heard outside the house startles Nina onto the razor’s edge. She will reside there for most of the 90 minutes that ensue.
            Navarro told me in an interview for The San Diego Union-Tribune that her play was inspired by a book given to her mother by a friend that recalled that woman’s suffering under the Pinochet dictatorship. Such a book factors into “Fragment/o/s,” and its presence in Nina’s house (an unwelcome “gift”) seems to haunt and taunt Nina.
            The three other members of the “Fragment/o/s” cast portray Nina’s family and, in flashbacks, shadowy and predatory figures from the past in Chile, where Nina’s brother was “disappeared” and where she was subsequently tortured. These time-traveling transitions are accomplished with shifts in lighting and sound – they’re at first disorienting but we come to expect and dread them.
            In the present, daughter Chivi, who’s on the verge of completing her law-school education, is a full-of-life idealist who yearns to know her family roots, no matter how dark. She also has secrets of her own that will be revealed in what becomes an evening of household turmoil … and confrontations. Son Flacco wants nothing to do with Chile or his heritage. What he wants is for his parents to go ahead with the planned sale of the family home in Chile so that he’ll have the financial means for him and his partner to adopt a child.
            As for Armando, it’s clear from the moment he enters Nina’s house that he regrets the transgressions and neglect of their marriage and wants her back.
            The family conflicts shrink beside the psychological torture that Nina is undergoing. Thirty years have passed since she left Chile, but she remains trapped inside their terrors. This culminates in a flashback torture scene that is not for the weak of heart.
            Vega’s commitment and stamina as Nina through 90 roiling minutes make hers one of the strongest performances locally this year. Enciso and Isariuz bring energy and layers to characters who clash on much but not over their love for their mother. The Armando character could use a little fleshing out.
            “Fragment/o/s” is a play with its passion and its ferocity in the right place, an indictment of an atrocity of history but at the same time an intimation that healing, at least the start of healing, can be found in the loving arms of family.
            “Fragment/o/s Of Air/e” runs through Aug. 18 at OnStage Playhouse in Chula Vista.