Communication—and lack of it—is at the heart of Octavio Solis’ Lydia, having its regional premiere by Cara Mia Theatre Co. as part of the AT&T Elevator Project.
It’s 1970s El Paso, and the Flores family is hanging by a fragile thread. Patriarch Claudio (Rodney Garza) works nights and spends his days either sleeping or blocking out the world with his records and headphones. Mama Rosa (Frida Espinosa-Müller) is trying to juggle returning to the work force with her insistence that the black eyes her husband gives her are her fault. Youngest son Misha (an achingly earnest Marcus Piñon) is attempting to remain studious while discovering the fairer sex, and older brother Rene (Ruben Carrazana) is either in a fight or about to start one. It’s not until Lydia, an undocumented maid from Mexico, arrives to clean up their lives that they begin to hear each other.
Lydia is also able to hear Ceci, the Flores’ severely brain-damaged daughter. We hear her too, in the pockets of lucidity when Ceci jolts from her unfocused staring to pour her heart out. These lightning-fast transitions are an incredible challenge, and to portray both the fiery teenage girl and the twitching shell of a woman she becomes is no small feat. Stephanie Cleghorn Jasso anchors the play with her fearless performance, channeling a young woman who went out hunting for adventure right before her quinceañera and came home with her head “stitched back together like a baseball.”
Alejandra Flores is serene and wise as the mysterious Lydia, a Mexican Mary Poppins who somehow knows exactly what each member of the Flores family needs to finally feel fulfilled. But it’s not all rosy cleaning montages and magical carpet bags in Solis’ world.
There’s a darkness that pervades this tragic family, and that’s reflected in everything from the set, dressed in drab ’70s taupe by Scott Osbourne, to Linda Blase’s dim lighting (Rosa doesn’t believe in taking the plastic off lamp shades), to the forbidden secrets everyone is trying to keep hidden. What exactly happened that fateful night when Ceci lost everything, even her ability to sit up unassisted? What was the nature of her relationship with cousin Alvaro (Ivan Jasso)? Why does Rene seem to regard her with a potent mixture of disdain and sorrow?
After nearly three hours, and a few muddying subplots, the answers to these questions explode out of the shadows. The ending is in line with the rest of the play, in that it’s satisfying and yet immensely difficult to stomach. Director David Lozano doesn’t hold his cast back from the uncomfortable moments, and it’s by squirming through those scenes that we come to understand the Floreses, no matter our initial perception of them.
