Hearts frozen by fire in ‘Vesuvius’

Since excavation of Pompeii in the 18th century, the lost city has seized people’s imaginations -- how in AD 79, the explosion of volcanic Mt. Vesuvius rained ash on the populace, interring thousands.

That sense of something falling from the sky and cementing people in place is a central metaphor in Lucinda Coxon’s “Vesuvius,” which opened over the weekend at South Coast Repertory. The story’s cataclysms aren’t so much physical as psychological, however, for the central characters have been stopped in their tracks by grief.

This is a quiet, poetic play, more concerned with emotional truths than easy answers. In its world premiere presentation, directed by David Emmes on the Costa Mesa theater’s smaller Julianne Argyros Stage, it demands a few leaps of logic and a suspension of skepticism. Yet insistently, unobtrusively, it speaks its mind and pours out its heart.

In an introductory slide-show/lecture, one of “Vesuvius’ ” central characters observes that the ancient Pompeiians “had settled on what was -- and remains -- a remarkably hostile bit of earth, determined to buck them off.” She goes on to note: “Of course the truth is that we too live cheek by jowl with disaster.”

Identified only as “The Woman,” this character (Natacha Roi) is a British forensic anthropologist who, we gradually learn, is called to burial sites and mass graves around the world to analyze murdered bodies. Weary from all that death as well as a personal loss, she schedules a period of quieter study at an academic retreat outside Naples, not far from ancient Pompeii and deadly Mt. Vesuvius.

Upon arriving at her lodgings, the woman is dismayed to learn she must share living space with a stranger: a male geologist -- “The Man” (Tony Ward) -- visiting from New Zealand to write a book about volcanoes. He too has suffered a loss, the memory lingering in the ghostly form of Miguel (Bobby Plasencia), a New Yorker (and World Trade Center occupant) with whom he’d become friendly on a previous trip to Italy.

Ash dusts the abstracted performing area (designed by Christopher Barreca), and clouds -- sometimes the fluffy, white kind, more often the roiling, killing sort -- periodically surge across the blank backdrop (video by Austin Switser).

In this threatening environment, the characters try to assess risk -- the man compiling his study of volcanic activity, the woman working over in her mind what she’s learned about the chances of giving birth to a child who, like her late brother, might have Down syndrome (with David Paul Francis as a doctor and Jennifer Hinds as the brother’s friend a part of these memories).

The performances are as quietly expressive as Coxon’s words, as pain, in the characters’ less guarded moments, tugs at the corners of Roi’s and Ward’s faces. Awareness of life’s fragility has all but shut down both characters. The woman, in particular, has responded by developing a protectively hard shell and turning inward, when what she most needs is to reconnect to the world. As time seesaws between present and haunted past, the man and woman slowly but inexorably wear away each other’s defenses.

As the story unfolds in 90 minutes, without intermission, the audience confronts certain storytelling contrivances that are difficult to accept. (What foundation of any repute, for instance, would assign a woman and a man to share space without so much as consulting them?) Yet within the free-flowing framework established by Coxon -- a British writer whose work includes “Nostalgia,” presented at SCR in 2001 -- viewers are encouraged to set aside literal-mindedness for a larger, emotional reality.

These characters must go on living in the danger zone that is our world. They can let fear freeze them in place, or they can -- until life’s inevitable and sometimes unpredictable end -- experience each day to the fullest. Coxon suggests which path to pursue when the man, sharing a bottle of grappa -- in one of his most treasured memories -- with Miguel, asks: “Why is the certain anticipation of a hangover no deterrent to excess imbibation?”

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‘Vesuvius’

Where: South Coast Repertory, Julianne Argyros Stage, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

When: 7:45 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 2 and 7:45 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays

Ends: May 15

Price: $27 to $56

Contact: (714) 708-5555 or www.scr.org

Running Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Natacha Roi...The Woman

Tony Ward...The Man

Bobby Plasencia...Miguel

Written by Lucinda Coxon. Directed by David Emmes. Set Chris Barreca. Costumes Nephelie Andonyadis. Lights Tom Ruzika. Video Austin Switser. Stage manager Randall K. Lum.