Whether it’s on the surface or the interior, every character in Abi Morgan’s drama “Tender,” now playing at the Michael Weller Theater, is lonely and alienated. The “romance is dead” genre seems to be popular with contemporary British playwrights but, with the exception of Patrick Marber’s “Closer,” these outpourings of emotional plight have not made for riveting theater. So it proves here. Occasional flashes of inspiration arise — a monologue on staff shortages in the missing person’s bureau is hilarious. But the play’s themes — people need to trust each other more, life is random, and revolves around a few key decisions — are excruciatingly obvious and the dialogue too often lacks bite.

Ms. Morgan’s play is receiving its New York premiere more than six years after it was first performed in London, and the playwright hasn’t had a play staged since then. Not that Ms. Morgan has fallen on hard times; she has subsequently penned TV miniseries, notably the HBO miniseries “Tsunami,” and a slew of upcoming literary adaptations (Monica Ali’s “Brick Lane,” Sebastian Faulks’s “Birdsong,” and Zadie Smith’s “On Beauty”). “Tender” consists of short, sharp scenes depicting the interconnecting lives of seven lovesick lost souls, and its episodic feel accounts for why Ms. Morgan has of late been working in television.

This is reinforced in the New York production by a wide-screen television at the back of the stage supplying a changing city locale. Director Kevin O’Rourke has seamlessly shifted the action to New York from London. Tash is snappy and carefree, addicted to casual sex and drunkenness. Her friend Hen is pregnant by feckless builder boyfriend Al who harbors romantic feelings for Tash. Hen works in a missing persons bureau where she meets Gloria, who is desolate after having been abandoned by Marvin following 20 years of marriage. Marvin now works as a cleaner and has befriended Nathan, a market research executive, unable to come to terms with the end of his marriage, who unwisely hires Tash. Squeal, a forlorn doctor, bumps into all of them.

The material’s shortcomings are offset, however, by several fine performances. Alysia Reiner effectively captures Tash, a force of nature whose brash demeanor cloaks her manifold insecurities. Her friend Hen, played by Sarah Megan Thomas, imparts an odd mixture of smugness and insecurity. The emotional breakdown that Hen undergoes, arising from her boyfriend’s infidelity, is undermined by Ms. Thomas’s radiant countenance, which suggests the most pressing worry she faces is a bad hair day.

Pity Jeffrey Woodard as Squeal, who hardly says, or squeals, anything of note. According to the résumé enclosed with the press material, Mr. Woodard recently played a “Drunk Bar Guy (speaking)” on “Gossip Girl,” and I imagine that role offered more range than his part here.

John Rothman fares more successfully as the wandering Marvin, giving a touching portrayal of elderly disillusionment. Indeed, Marvin’s scenes with the broken Nathan (Noel Joseph Allain) provide glimpses of Ms. Morgan’s dramatic potential. With his twitchy facial mannerisms and fatalistic disposition, Mr. Allain delivers an outstanding performance that electrifies an unsatisfactory drama. Contrasting the empty musings of his fellow miserable urbanites, Nathan’s crackup haunts the memory.