March 9, 2008 Theater review Dark artist: Mike Daisey in Barring the Unforseen. Barring The Unforseen Mike Daisey (solo performance); directed by Jean-Michele Gregory At Portland Stage Company's Studio Theatre through Sat., March 15 Mike Daisey, a large man with pale skin dressed all in black, walks on stage and sits at a table. On the table is a glass of water and a black cloth (he sweats under the lights) and a few sheets of notes. Daisey sits and talks for 90 minutes. The result: Some of the best theater you can get in America right now. Daisey is a Mainer from "up the county" who’s making waves nationally. He's acted with Bill Gates, shared late-night chat with Letterman, and made a movie (Layover, his first feature) distributed by celebrated Danish filmmaker Lars Von Trier’s company, Zentropa. But his specialty is the monologue, and this month he’s returned to the Pine Tree State to premiere a brand new piece, Barring The Unforseen. The black box of Portland Stage Company’s Studio Theatre is blacker than usual for this show. The lobby and theater are minimally lit. Upon arriving, audience members are each handed a flashlight. Nervously moving through shadows in search of a seat well prepares the viewer for Daisey's subjects: ghosts, the unknown, the unknowable. Daisey's method often involves mixing personal history with stories about historical figures. This time around it’s H.P. Lovecraft, the early 20th-century author of overheated tales teeming with the half-glimpsed terrors that lurk just below the surface of life. Daisey ties himself to Lovecraft through the story of the night he and some friends broke into the writer’s old apartment and held a séance. "I am an atheist," Daisey proclaims – but that doesn't keep him away from the Ouija board... There are essentially three stories in the show, and Daisey alternates between them until each comes to a conclusion. There is the life of Lovecraft, who fell into the pit of madness, crawled his way back, and then wrote about what he'd experienced; the story of Mike Daisey as a boy, an existentialist at age five who thought about death constantly; and the creepy saga of Laura, the sad girl Daisey semi-befriended as a teen, whose sad eyes seemed to hold terrible secrets (and, of course, they did). Lovecraft dealt with his demons by telling stories about them. In Barring The Unforseen, Daisey does much the same thing. The human mind "makes a story out of whatever it can find," he says. The power of horror stories lies in what he calls their "grotesque burlesque" – the things they do not reveal. He's learned this lesson well. Daisey narrates the story of Laura with all the lights out, using a microphone to fill the theater with his hushed voice, slowing his speech to a crawl when the next word is almost too awful to say. Time creeps by as horrible things seem on the verge of happening. The audience grows quiet and still. The theater feels empty; Daisey's voice disembodied. This is storytelling of a very high order. For a guy who doesn't even stand up until the show is over, Daisey is quite a dynamic performer. His vocal mastery involves a stillness that draws you in and tonal shifts that keep you from getting bored. Though this show deals with all manner of nightmares, it doesn't fail to be funny. Daisey knows how to generate laughs, most often with self-deprecating humor. When he mentions that as a dorky teen he went around growling "I hate all music!" it gets a chuckle and deflates tension. When he says things like, "these are the things that death brings as gifts," the chill is that much deeper. Barring The Unforseen is a work in progress – Daisey and his director/collaborator/wife Jean-Michele Gregory, who live in New York City these days, are using the run at the Studio Theatre to whip this show into shape. Although the opening night performance could have been more concise, it seems ungrateful to complain that a Mike Daisey performance went on too long. Go and see Unforseen – who knows how many more chances we Mainers will get to experience one of Daisey’s live shows? — Jason Wilkins Barring the Unforseen runs through Sat., March 15, at Portland Stage Company's Studio Theatre, 25A Forest Ave., Portland. Performances Wed.-Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 4:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Tix: $15. 774-0465. www.portlandstage.com, www.mikedaisey.com.