Review: ‘Earthbound’ at T.U. Studios takes off on its own dimension

In “Earthbound,” a new original musical by Skypilot Theatre Company receiving its world premiere at T.U. Studios, seven people remain on the space station Miami, which orbits the Earth.

We’re not sure why Miami was built, but it’s been in orbit for 100 years. Its inhabitants were all born on board and have never been to the planet they call “our home.”

We first meet them at a funeral, a trance-like ritual in which they send the body of a dead comrade to Earth, believing that he will come back to life when he gets there. “All of us will live again on Earth,” they intone, a nicely spooky inversion of the way the inhabitants of this planet tend to locate immortality in the clouds.

The five young adults on Miami (Zachary B. Guiler’s Star Trek-y set in an appropriately disheartening orange-silver-olive palette) are guided in this creed -- about which they all understandably have a lot of questions -- by an older man named Dade (JR Esposito, whose quiet charisma owes something to his strong resemblance to John Malkovich). Dade’s wife, Viscaya (the compelling Chera Holland), is slipping into dementia, and Dade would like to retire from his leadership responsibilities.

But the mythology in which he inculcated his young charges has left them unprepared for the reality of their situation -- which is gradually revealed to be very grim indeed.

Skypilot’s resident playwright, Adam Hahn, has come up with a perfect device for handling the back-story demands of his dystopian science fiction plot: Miami is a talking space station, with a voice supplied by Ashley Fuller (who sounds exactly the way you’d imagine a female space station would talk). She competently takes care of tasks from implanting frozen embryos to playing video-on-demand.

But even with her help, Hahn doles out information to the audience at a grudging, almost obstinate pace. Some questions are not answered until long after we have guessed the answers; others are never answered; others are answered over and over. For good measure, characters even describe scenes we have already watched. The result is a feeling of stagnancy, which Christian Levatino’s often leaden direction does not alleviate.

Nor does the score, 17 numbingly similar songs composed by Jonathan Price with lyrics by Chana Wise. Described as “electronica,” it starts off promisingly cool and space-agey. Several of the tunes are pretty and haunting. But after a while, there are just too many of them, and they all start to run together. Some judicious streamlining might send this creative work into a new dimension.

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“Earthbound: An Electronica Musical.” T.U. Studios, 10943 Camarillo St., North Hollywood. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes. 8 p.m. Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. $20. Ends July 15. (800) 838-3006 or www.SkyPilotTheatre.com.