In the program for the new multi-disciplinary theater piece “Mycenaean,” Carl Hancock Rux is credited as producer, writer, director, composer, and leading man. So the blame for this colossal miscalculation must lie squarely with Mr. Rux, whose incomprehensible blend of Greek myth, futuristic fiction, music, and dance had several patrons heading for the doors on its opening night at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Those who stayed through the final minutes heard Mr. Rux’s character exclaim, “I don’t know what happened!” No, indeed — nor did anyone else.It definitely had something to do with Racine’s “Phaedra,”and something to do with a futuristic city called Fulcrum, where a loquacious guy with a camera (David Barlow) was shooting a documentary about people of the future who dream about the ancient past (specifically, Mycenaea). It also had something to do with dream theory, Brooklyn brownstones, a little girl, a DJ who went to Paris, soldiers at war, and the Israelites.

All these things figured obliquely in run-on monologues and bits of overlapping, rapid-fire dialogue. Occasionally, a single line of thought reached a blissful instant of clarity. But all too soon, it was on to the next inscrutable sequence.

To those who would argue that Mr. Rux’s poetry was deliberately diffuse, I wholeheartedly agree. But that doesn’t change the fact that his intentionally confusing material rapidly wore out its welcome. One might have forgiven this self-indulgence, had it been exercised with whimsy, but the prevailing mood of “Mycenaean” was stone-cold sober.

Yet what was perhaps most vexing about “Mycenaean” was its squandered potential. Mr. Rux, an Obie-winning playwright (for 2002’s “Talk”), a former resident artist with Mabou Mines, and an accomplished musician, has everything at his disposal — his own talent, a gifted cast, the full resources of BAM’s Harvey Theater, and an eager crowd. For a handful of compelling moments — most memorably, during a sequence about the demise of Brooklyn brownstones — the effective use of these elements hinted at what “Mycenaean” might have been. Unfortunately, such moments were rare.

Even the play’s multi-disciplinary strengths seemed to work against it. Technical problems with the audio caused distracting volume and microphone glitches. And despite two giant video screens, a complex sound design, innumerable lighting changes, and a cast that boasted many fine dancers and singers, “Mycenaean” was wordier than most straight plays.

Mr. Rux’s wall-to-wall poetry had many modes: Gertrude Stein-like phrases, biblical prophesying, Q-and-A sessions, academic lectures, and monotone newscaster jibberish, to name a few. The work’s Big Questions (e.g. “Who is dreaming? Who is awake?”) were repeated rhythmically throughout. Sometimes, the actors adopted a robotic tone straight out of a Stanley Kubrick movie; at other times, the full cast chanted the lines, Greek chorus-style. Against this flood of words, movement and song had little chance. Mostly the cast of 13 mimed or hummed; only rarely did a dancer’s or singer’s solo break through the wall of text. (This was too bad, since Mr. Rux’s songs were uniformly strong.)

Of his many (too many) roles in this production, the one Mr. Rux played best was actor. As Racine/Hippolytus, a Greek warrior-Brooklyn DJ-French playwright hybrid, his charisma carried the audience through the confusing narrative. (And his two female leads, Helga Davis and Patrice Johnson, brought their own rich energy to imperfect roles.)

One looming question remains: Why did Mr. Rux choose to produce, direct, write, and star in his own show? Theater — especially multi-media theater on this kind of scale—is by nature a collaborative art form. “Mycenaean” would seem exactly the kind of endeavor in which two heads and two pairs of eyes (and two red pens) are consistently better than one.

Mr. Rux’s Renaissance-man qualities have been much celebrated, but they’re precisely what get him into trouble in “Mycenaean,” a vague, circumlocutory jumble desperately in need of an editor.

Until October 14 (651 Fulton St., Ft. Greene, Brooklyn, 718-636-4100).