“Bright Abyss” is a piece of lovely foolishness, the sort of night in the theater that ends too quickly. It’s not the weightiest piece of theater BAM will ever host – but between Ibsen revivals and Sarah Kane’s psychoses, our souls need a bit of dandelion fluff.

The brainchild of James Thierree, “Bright Abyss” follows no script, no discernable pattern. It is a gleeful hodgepodge of dance and pantomime, set in what seems to be an attic. There’s something of an abandoned flea market about the set, like a prop room invaded by children.

La Compagnie du Hanneton (The Junebug Company) appears first behind a golden scrim, fighting against a monsoon. Wind-blown billows of white fabric threaten to engulf the company, but the humans do battle in clanking armor made out of ladders, shooting fluttering fabric missiles into the wind. It’s an overwhelming start, with enough movement and excitement to make you forget it’s only five people fighting against the storm.

Soon, though, the tempest clears, and the white silk drags away from the company now happily sitting and playing cards. This is the right attic for their games, one equipped with tables that become giant wheels, a radio tuned to their fancies, and a velvet sofa that likes to eat people. Everything is gilt and worn, like furniture rescued from a shipwreck.

The scenes themselves have been salvaged too, but from a book of fairytales – none of them recognizable, just reminiscent of forgotten stories. When the gate rolls out, the boys must defend it. Women slap the men who kiss them, then waltz like dead puppets with their strings cut. And the pianist eventually falls for her own piano, jumping on it, ripping off its siding, and trying to make love to its strings.

Dressing themselves in faded frockcoats or layers of white petticoats, the people washed up onto this playground all hail from very different shores. Uma Ysamat, the musician, rushes around with the others and then scares the stuffing out of them with bursts of opera. Raphaelle Boitel can fold herself into a suitcase or climb like a lizard on the castle-gate while Thiago Martins flips through capoeira routines that defy gravity. The elegant Niklas Ek tries to take control, but his efforts at talking on the old-fashioned microphone in the corner come out as gibberish.

Director, creator, and performer Mr. Thierree, even in this eye-popping company, dominates whenever he sets foot on stage. Grandson of Charlie Chaplin and son of the circus innovators Jean Baptiste Thierree and Victoria Chaplin, Mr. Thierree has inherited every ounce of his family’s performance genius. He has his grandfather’s sad eyes and even his love of an old joke – many of the most effective bits are taken from ancient vaudeville routines. Particularly when Mr. Thierree slides his way through the “my legs are too slippery to cross” chestnut, he makes each routine delicious and new.

Mr. Thierree’s work does start to show its bones two-thirds of the way through, when he brings down an old gold curtain and the company begins to solo.The intoxicating momentum of the group pieces begins to ebb and the hint of a formula begins to peep through. But before long, thunder starts to rumble in the distance, and the sweet games they play become a bit darker, even a bit frantic. By the time the storm blows in again, the company has found a way to ride it out.

The BAM Harvey’s stripped red plaster and decaying proscenium works for a startling range of pieces, but even more than the others, “Bright Abyss” looks at home there. The crumbling theater and the nostalgic company fit each other so seamlessly, it seems they have been together for centuries. Certain moments of “Bright Abyss” feel like eavesdropping; as though we have surprised the theater’s ghosts at their play.

Until November 13 (30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, 718-636-4100).