Genres mix but don’t quite jell

More than one disconnected message strides about in “In Communicado” at the Brewery Arts Complex. This ambitious, still-forming interdisciplinary foray by Adrienne Campbell-Holt and Erica Rice explores the vagaries of communication with flashes of ingenuity and stretches of disarray.

A presentation by Nest Arts, “In Communicado” describes itself as “a play with dance and film.” Actually, it’s site-specific performance art, in which dance, puppets, multimedia and spoken word commingle.

One enters to live tunes from musical directors Dan Heflin (sax) and George M. Uplifter (guitar). Rows of kitchenette stools, some equipped with headsets, sit before a vaguely futuristic playing area. Swaths of clear plastic, metal accessories and television screens (enhanced by Cris Moris’ cool lighting) evoke both Peter Brook and Stanley Kubrick. This is the Center, dedicated to the study of how sensory and environmental perception affects communication.

“In Communicado” opens casually in an extended prologue. A video of a keynote speech given by Doc (a wry Adam Harrington) gives way to four white-garbed attendants (costumes by Anthony Garcia). They are Jade Sealey, Nyra Constant, John Felikian and coauthor Rice, all fascinating in their controlled torso twists and linear, space-claiming movements (choreography by Campbell-Holt and Mesha Kussman).The nominal storyline involves puppeteer M Boy (the valiant David Skyler) and his inchoate longing for M Girl (Campbell-Holt, effective if underwritten), which has brought him to the Center. This scenario fluctuates between marionette performance (puppets by Tova Epp, theater by Keith Mitchell), surreal group scenes and mini-dramas involving M Boy’s bilingual family: Mom (Christine Avila, arresting as ever), Dad (Alex Castillo) and Sis (Campbell-Holt).

Snippets of “The Red Balloon” and “Le Nozze di Figaro” pop up in the mix, as does Sissy Boyd as an elemental Old Lady. Genuine wit accompanies Doc’s demonstrations of body language and double-speak. Christine Barger’s Annie, an Agnes Gooch-like ventriloquist reprogrammed to become a French chanteuse, is goofily accessible, and Avila sings a Latino classic with resonant simplicity in one standout sequence.

Where “In Communicado” falls short is in its erratic sense of kinesis, shaky connection between the segments and incomplete mechanics of metaphor.

The audience participation factor isn’t fully integrated, and neither are those headsets. During the first half, we can listen to out-of-sequence onstage dialogue, Mozart, techno music, a wide range of aural clatter. Yet this intriguing idea is undeveloped, jarring at several junctures.

Then again, this sense of disorder, which grows wearing by the two-thirds mark, may be the point of “In Communicado,” which in any case seems best suited to experimental theater mavens and fans of the admirable artists involved.

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‘In Communicado’

Where: Diavolo Dance Space, Brewery Arts Complex, 616 Moulton St., L.A.

When: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays

Ends: April 9

Price: $20

Contact: (323) 623-9003 or reservations@NestArts.org

Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes