Life and time play tricks on those in love

What is that oddly serene, extremely pregnant young woman doing hitchhiking in a torrential downpour?

"Cloud Tectonics" certainly supplies an intriguing opening image - and in José Rivera's 1995 play, much of what follows maintains the peculiar "what's this?" fascination of the opening scene.

The spare, earnestly played production at Mildred's Umbrella Theatre Company lets us appreciate the play's many moments of marvelous writing, even though not all are optimally effective as drama.

During an apocalyptic deluge in disaster-prone Los Angeles, hitchhiker Celestina De La Luna is picked up by Anibal Del Sol, an airport baggage handler. Celestina doesn't know where she's going, only that she'd like to find the man who made her pregnant: "He's a very handsome and dishonest man." Clearly troubled by her situation, Anibal insists she spend the night as his house.

We soon realize something's up with Celestina; Anibal catches on a bit later. "Time and me don't get along," she explains. She mentions that she's been pregnant for two years and speaks of being in her 50s - though she looks in her 20s. When the two arrive at Anibal's house, he realizes all his clocks have stopped.

Celestina, you see, exists beyond the usual boundaries of time, in a sort of individual time zone all her own. As Anibal falls in love with her, she alters his reality, too.

She also has an earth-shaking effect on Nelson, Anibal's younger brother. After a six-year absence, Nelson bursts in unannounced, on a brief leave from military service. He, too, falls in love with Celestina. When he leaves, he promises to return for her in two years, when his service is completed. Later that evening, or so it seems to Celestina and Anibal, Nelson returns. For him, two years have passed, and he's returned to claim his beloved. (Lucky I don't wear a watch or I'd have been checking it at this point.)

So it goes. In the play's poignant epilogue, set 40 years later, Celestina, looking much the same and carrying her infant, visits and consoles the elderly, bedridden Anibal. Yes, life and time play funny tricks, especially for those in love.

"Cloud Tectonics" does more than just play tricks with time. It has extravagant flights of poetic and philosophical fancy, musings on the various disasters that may destroy Los Angeles, as well as the roughhousing and profane macho banter Nelson and Anibal enjoy when together. Through it all, Rivera tests the interplay of the decent Anibal, the enigmatic Celestina and the volatile Nelson, in a slightly surreal milieu mingling the earthy and ethereal.

Best known for his play "Marisol" and Oscar-nominated screenplay "The Motorcycle Diaries," Rivera with this work pays homage to the magical realism of his mentor and idol, Gabriel García Márquez. Though sometimes bumpy as a theatrical narrative, the writing is rich in ideas and originality, with some arresting lines and memorable speeches.

Jennifer Decker has directed with simplicity, letting the play's strengths speak for themselves. The tricky aspect is creating just the right mood for such an unusual piece. This production is on its way in that regard but could use a shade more fine-tuning tonally.

Patricia Duran seems ideal as Celestina, determined yet dispassionate. With her placid yet meaningful gaze, a grace in her very stillness, she conveys the otherworldly, out-of-time quality of a figure who may be more an idea than a character.

Greg Dean plays Anibal with quiet, rough-hewn strength; we get both the sturdiness and the world-weary acceptance. He makes us believe this man is both puzzled and entranced by Celestina.

Darnea Olson brings a toughness and impulsiveness to Nelson, needing only to smooth some of the transitions in the role with the play's wildest extremes of behavior.

If not ideally shaped as a play, "Cloud Tectonics" is often felicitous as pure stage poetry, and seldom less than interesting.