Tempting as it might be, there are few things as pointless as telling another person about your dreams. What seems all exciting and freaky beforehand winds up sounding aimless and dreadfully boring when explained. The Confluence Theatre Company’s newest production, now at the Chocolate Factory, finds one of those rare items farther up on the “do not explain” list. In a mind-numbing hour and a half, Jessica Bowser’s “It’s About Time” obsesses over one man’s attempts to get organized. He makes lists. He videotapes his bowling. And he manages to waste the little time we want to spend with him.

Bang (David Lillich), dogged by his shadow (Craig Fitzpatrick), has everything in his life organized just how he wants it. So why isn’t his life all he’d hoped? A tidy, all-white room contains everything a young obsessive-compulsive could want. A row of identical gray pajamas hangs neatly in a hidden closet. His video camera stands at the ready to record his every move. A large screen behind his bed plays videos of our Bang at work and brushing his teeth. Perhaps director Adam Bernstein thinks he’s fetishizing normality. But instead Mr. Bernstein just succeeds in boring us with badly made video on an endless loop.

In a nod to “Krapp’s Last Tape,” Bang likes to record his goals and strategies. Staring directly into the lens, he doggedly maintains his faith in his new self-help system, “The Praxis of It.” The Praxis encourages him to visualize his future, but Bang can only concentrate on his past. Just this evening he royally tanked on a date with Ritza (Jenny Tibbels), though her ditzy peppiness would turn off the loneliest soul. The pouting Maya (Christine Ryndak), a ghost of a girlfriend past, keeps trying to get Bang’s attention long enough to break up with him.

Most of the evening follows Bang around his apartment, digging out DVDs of himself to watch. His shadow sometimes trips him, sometimes helps him, but in general seems more interested in moving forward than the man himself. Mr. Lillich, bad in person, is worse in video. Whether wrestling with his alter-ego or wrestling on the couch with Maya, he never exudes a drop of charisma. Certainly, Bang is supposed to be a defeated schlub. But this is a defeated schlub we can’t care about.

Highly stylized work requires several things, none of which appear here. It needs actors with physical precision, a director with imagination and choreographic skill, and a highly developed theatrical metaphor. Instead we get poor Mr. Fitzpatrick trying to be a mute shadow simply by overacting with his face. Ms. Bowser’s script, though, is the real villain. Imprecise and wordy, it either bloats with Bang’s interminable navel-gazing, or it stutters along unbearably in the “romantic” exchanges.

The designers, sadly, have pulled out all the stops. Sarah Pearline has turned the long white space of the Chocolate Factory into an undulating brick apartment. Sections of wall open to reveal Bang’s tidy closet, and one wall is given over to a massive organizational calendar. In one clever moment, three wavy-topped bookcases align to make the interior of a bowling alley. Though money and time were clearly spent rushing around the city making the awful videos, poor Beth Turomsha only gets six clip-lights to make a lighting design.

Destructive self-analysis certainly seems to be the topic on everyone’s minds. From Will Eno’s “Thom Pain” to Young Jean Lee’s “Pullman, WA,” introspective monologues have become the new fodder for nightmares. “It’s About Time,” though, hasn’t got anything to add to the conversation, it is the nightmare.

***

In 1915, over a million innocent Armenian Christians were slaughtered at the hands of the Turkish government – the rest were driven into exile. Richard Kalinoski’s “Beast on the Moon” tries to remedy the Turkish denial of the atrocity, one off-Broadway sized house at a time. If your crest wilts a bit at the idea of another Holocaust play, keep in mind that the Armenian holocaust is still pooh-poohed by the Turkish government. “Just a few spots of local violence,” they call it.

Set in 1921, the play sometimes feels like an old-fashioned melodrama, with picturesque orphans and broad humor delivered in broad accents. Larry Moss’s upbeat, literally rosy-hued production aside, Mr. Kalinoski resists the temptation of making his Armenians too saintly. The genocide and their escape serve as background, chilling an already dark story about a bad marriage that must somehow survive to become a good one.

In Milwaukee, Armenian Aram (Omar Metwally) welcomes his mail-order bride and fellow genocide survivor Seta (Lena Georgas).Though she still clutches a doll (we later learn she is 15), Aram expects her to act like a wife right away. She is grateful to Aram for saving her from the refugee camps, but her conjugal duties terrify her. With good reason: As Aram drags her, screaming, from under the table, she can’t escape memories of the Turk who raped her sister.

Obsessed with repopulating an extinct family, Aram pesters her again and again over the next several years. Seta, though, is made of some very stern stuff. If she can survive her mother’s crucifixion at the hands of the Turks, a sullen husband should be a cinch. She eventually starts befriending orphans in the neighborhood, giving them food in exchange for a few minutes of mothering. The pepperiest of them, Vincent (Matthew Borish, endearing in a newsboy cap), starts to chip holes in Aram’s armor. Before Aram can open himself up, though, Seta must shock him out of his obsession with the past.

Mr. Moss directs the piece like a comedy. Characters deliver straight out to the audience; there’s a sort of soft-shoe rhythm to the whole show. Mr. Metwally and Ms. Georgas strike attitudes and, for the most part, ignore the dysfunction in their marriage, so it bubbles ominously below the surface.

As a genre piece, “Beast on the Moon” is a sturdy example of its breed. It tugs the predictable heartstrings; it jerks the usual tears. It does have moments of impressiveness, though, in Mr. Metwally’s transformation and in Mr. Borish’s second-act monologue. In those moments, it sheds a rare light on the Armenian genocide. Don’t let history eclipse these people again.

“It’s About Time” until May 14 (39 49th Avenue, Long Island City, 718-482-7069).

“Beast on the Moon” (111 E. 15th Street, between Union Square East and Lexington Avenue, 212-239-6200).