You can’t reduce Jose Mejia Espinoza to an abstraction: He’s too vivid. That was obvious from the opening moments of writer-performer Cesar Melendez’s solo show “El Inmigrante (The Immigrant),” which ran at the Gunston Arts Center in Arlington last weekend. Mejia, the play’s Nicaraguan-born protagonist, wore shoes held together with duct tape. A bloody cut curved beneath one eye, and there were wounds on his arms. Most strikingly, he had an odd habit of conversing with a crucifix — not in conventional prayer but in bursts of argument, gossip, chitchat, rebuke and even mockery. If it were possible to talk the ear off a piece of religious iconography, Mejia would have managed it in this production, which opened Teatro de la Luna’s multi-play winter celebration “El Abrazo Lunar/The Moon’s Embrace,” running through March 17.

The character’s idiosyncratic volubility and arresting physical presence help explain the track record of “El Inmigrante,” which has played to over a quarter-million people since the Costa Rican company Teatro La Polea premiered it in 2001. Inspired by a 1997 article in the Costa Rican press, the show deals with the phenomenon of anti-immigrant sentiment: After braving enormous hardship to gain entry to Costa Rica, where he finds a construction job, Mejia meets with resentment and abuse from fellow laborers and others. It’s a tale that resonates in contemporary America, where the issue of illegal immigration often makes headlines — in coverage of recently enacted state laws, for instance. But while journalism and political discourse sometimes deal with immigration in terms of policy and statistics, “El Inmigrante” puts a face, and an example of suffering, front and center.

Performing in Spanish (simultaneous English translation was available via headset), Melendez steered his voluble, agonized hero through a spectrum of emotion. One moment, the character was kneeling near his bed (a line of milk crates) making stabbing gestures as he imagined taking a chisel to a bigoted acquaintance. Minutes later, he was quietly blowing a tearful kiss to his spouse, far away in Nicaragua. At another point, he flashed a sarcastic grin as he teased and harangued the crucifix — his behavior not impiety, it seemed, but rather an attempt to engage fully with God.

“El Inmigrante” did occasionally feel like a thinly veiled lecture on the value of empathy. But with emphatic colored lighting, a few projections (of xenophobic graffiti and more) and a soundtrack that paired dramatic instrumentals with unnerving, grating sounds, the show was more often a lively meditation on what happens when prejudice and self-interest trump compassion. Teatro de la Luna’s “El Abrazo Lunar” lineup continues with “Familia en Construcción (Family Under Construction),” from Spain’s Factoria Teatro (March 1-3) and “No Puedo Vivir sin Mucama (I Can’t Live Without a Maid),” by Argentine writer/performer Perla Laske (March 8-10). The final production, running March 15-17, will be “Solo Petru (Petru: All by Himself),” a cafe-concert-style piece performed by Uruguay’s Petru Valenski, whose “Atrevidos (The Three Rascals)” visited Teatro de la Luna in 2011. All three productions are billed as U.S. premieres.