The world premiere of “Valley of the Heart” that opened Saturday, Feb. 13, at San Jose Stage Company would be a major event, if only because it’s the first new play by the father of Chicano theater, Luis Valdez, in 16 years. Many plays, books and exhibitions have explored the terrible injustices of the internment, but this may be the first look at its impact on Mexican and Japanese agricultural workers. A co-production with Valdez’s 50-year-old El Teatro Campesino — and the first production in a three-year partnership between the two companies — “Valley” is a decidedly mixed bag, engrossing and dramatically flat by turns and verging on tedious as Valdez increasingly substitutes historical details for character-based plot development. [...] there are also boldly drawn scenes and deeply moving passages that show considerable potential. [...] Valdez stages it beautifully, with the two households occupying opposite halves of Joe Cardinalli’s broad set, augmented by eloquent historical photos and film clips in David Murakami’s projections. Though Valdez only partly exploits his cross-cultural “kabuki corrido” concept, the borrowings of kabuki stagecraft are deft, and his stirring use of occasional Japanese and Mexican songs recalls the master showmanship of his landmark “Zoot Suit.” The main story is partly drawn from Valdez’s early Central Valley childhood — when his father managed a farm for an interned family until its military contracts dried up at the war’s end — and the mixed heritage of a later childhood friend in the Santa Clara Valley (or “the Valley of Heart’s Delight”). Details of xenophobic land-ownership laws, generational conflict in immigrant families and conditions in the cruelly named Heart Mountain internment camp heighten the dramatic tension of the lovers’ story and those of the other family members — though Valdez could explore their cultural differences in more depth.

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