The title character of “Bartleby, the Scrivener” should be an inspirational figure to glum workers everywhere. Putting down his pen, he goes on an unannounced strike from which no power can budge him. Bartleby drives his employer bananas and eventually drives him out of his own office: Bartleby may be a cipher, but he also invented the sit-in.

In film, it’s the stuff of horror (the creepy tenant who refuses to leave) or comedy (“Office Space” took Bartleby and made him a copy-room hero). But on the page, the quiet scrivener takes on dimensions both spiritual and philosophical. R.L. Lane’s adaptation of Melville’s short story gets much of the mood right and translates the weirdness neatly for the stage. Unfortunately, the production at the Blue Heron can’t quite muster the few lights necessary to set off Melville’s gloom. They do get the sense of creeping banality, though, which makes for a rather long evening in the theater.

In a Wall Street lawyer’s office, a young man arrives for a new copyist’s position. Bartleby, alone among the scriveners, doesn’t drink at lunch, wrestle with his desk’s height, or show emotion. A steady worker, he never takes leave of his temper, or, as it turns out, the office. For no apparent reason, one day the pale, mysterious copyist begins a work-stoppage – sitting quietly in his office, looking out his window, and, if Melville had only written about him a bit later, probably winning a lot of online poker.

But Bartleby, despite his laconic replies to an apoplectic boss (“I would prefer not to”), has a more than brilliantly executed laziness. His simple refusals, which grow to include everything from new assignments to simple sustenance, make him into a holy fool – but Wall Street, apparently, has no room for a hermitage.

Director Alessandro Fabrizi’s eye is so tuned for darkness here that he stumbles over what should be comic moments. Both of the Lawyer’s other clerks, a soused Turkey (Sterling Coyne) and nervy Nippers (Brian Linden) seem left to their own devices. Their bits of business are uneven and overloud where they should be sly and funny.

Mr. Fabrizi has only one big gun to deploy, so he can be forgiven for shooting it a bit wildly. The stalwart Gerry Bamman plays the Lawyer, the narrator of both play and story who employs Bartleby.The Lawyer (here called Standard) needs to be both sympathetic and officious, a pompous fellow who talks like Cicero but has a soft heart for the madman. Mr. Bamman nails the air of desperation, a moist-eyed shakiness in the face of the inexplicable. But he, too, overpowers subtle moments: His asides to the audience practically shake us by the lapels.

Mr. Bamman doesn’t leave anything to subtext, but Marco Quaglia actually plays too close to the vest. Made up in white pancake with his voice pitched low, Mr. Quaglia’s Bartleby does at first seem the part. He certainly has a nice way of peeping up at the taller Mr.Bam man, a manner that makes his diffidence more like coy flirtation. But as his behavior becomes more extreme, Mr. Quaglia’s stillness never changes quality. Bartleby goes from workplace nuisance to saint – but Mr. Quaglia just becomes a bore.

“Bartleby, the Scrivener” occupies an odd place in literature.The story has a little taste of the gothic, with some of Hawthorne’s supernatural scolding thrown in, but Melville’s hypnotic pace feels ahead of its time – his tight grip on the bones of his story is reminiscent of Kafka or Beckett.

Mr. Fabrizi clearly feels the presence of these later masters – the set could have been borrowed from a production of “The Trial,” and Mr. Coyne’s hapless clowning has one foot in “Godot.” But feeling their presence and working confidently with them are two very different tasks. Mr. Fabrizi never exerts sufficient directorial control over “Bartleby”; you can almost feel Mr. Bamman, in particular, trying to slip through his fingers. Without authority, Mr. Fabrizi, like the Lawyer, sees his creation melt away from him.

Until November 27 (123 E. 24th Street, between Lexington and Park Avenues, 212-868-4444).