Daisey's "Moon" has a few dark sides

Mike Daisey is a man of many interests.

His well-regarded solo performances have examined the rise of online merchandising ("21 Dog Years"), the scientific rivalry between inventors Nikolas Tesla and Thomas Edison ("Monopoly!") and the American government's war on terror ("If You See Something Say Something").

In Daisey's "The Moon Is A Dead World," his first multi-actor play, the popular writer-performer reveals other interests — including 1960s space travel and philosophical science fiction.

If only Daisey were as eloquent and hilarious here on those subjects as he is on so many others.

"The Moon Is a Dead World" (which, by happenstance or design, is also the name of an album by the hardcore rock group Gospel) is having its premiere run at Annex Theatre. And the play wobbles between a couple of overlapping galaxies.

One is an earnest exploration of Cold War paranoia and the destructive power of love. Another is a more tongue-in-cheek riff in a mock-"Twilight Zone" vein.

In the first realm, Gregor (Zachariah Robinson) is a Kafka-esque young Russian cosmonaut — one of many to perish while participating in the Soviet Union's long, often-fatal race to stake a claim on outer space.

For reasons hard to decipher, the dead Gregor crashes into another theatrical sphere: a Greenland "listening post" where two American soldiers, principled young Cal (Clayton Weller) and his hard-bitten, profane older cohort Nimitz (Jack Hamblin), fill their empty hours with macho sparring.

The play devotes a lot of time to the suspicious Americans trying to interrogate Gregor, who answers in portentous riddles and with forceful violence. Even more time is allotted to flashback Russian replays in which Gregor declares his love for a woman he'd gladly destroy the universe to win over: the doomed female cosmonaut Irina (Pamala Mijatov).

The disinterested Irina keeps telling Gregor to buzz off. And about halfway into the 85-minute "Moon is a Dead World," you may want to join her.

Let's set aside, for now, the gaping black holes in the plot. Like: How did Gregor's death give him superhuman Master of the Universe powers over time and space and humanity? And, as Eric Clapton put it, "Why does love have to be soooo sad?"

There are a couple of good wake-up jolts in Christopher Comte's otherwise straightforward staging, which periodically sags under the weight of the repetitive text.

The actors do their best to make sense of a tangle of quarky quirks, and to deliver with sincerity the heavy, navel-gazing soliloquies they are saddled with.

Truth be told, one wants to cut Daisey some slack. He's a terrific performer himself, and a richly observant, smartly surreal chronicler of the American panorama.

But there's no escaping that "The Moon Is a Dead World" is a misfire. Earth to Daisey: We know you can do a lot better.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com