Dance is just one element in the multi-media mix that is William Forsythe’s “Kammer/Kammer.” At Tuesday night’s opening, the performance was already going on when the audience arrived. Antony Rizzi worked the crowd like a master of ceremonies warming up a studio audience before a television show. If we didn’t like the performance, he requested that we not “do the German thing – booing.” He promised to “explain the show to you.”

Mr. Rizzi then shifted away from his frenetic, burlesque act and into a character inspired by Douglas Martin’s novel “Outline of My Lover,” in which the narrator recalls a gay love affair with an older celebrity. Mr. Rizzi was joined by Dana Caspersen, who recounted another doomed romantic relationship from Anne Carson’s “Irony Is Not Enough: Essay on My Life as Catherine Denevue (2nd Draft).” In this text – at least as interpreted by Mr. Forsythe – Ms. Caspersen imagined herself as Catherine Denevue acting in the role of a gay academic having an affair with a much younger woman. It may be meant to recall Ms. Denevue’s role in “Les Voleurs,” but it isn’t specified. Mr. Forysthe thus encourages audience members to give themselves a pat on the back for catching the reference.

Throughout “Kammer/Kammer,” both Ms. Caspersen and Mr. Rizzi continued to impersonate joint-auteurs, giving orders, directing stage action, and occasionally addressing the audience directly. Ostensibly accidental events provide choreographed interruptions: “Somebody’s mobile is going off,” Mr. Rizzi says. “Oh, it’s mine. . . .”

The set design of “Kammer/Kammer” provides a striking visual correlative to the text’s play within a play within a play. An oblique quality that rivals Henry James is established with artfully dispersed panels at mid-stage (which are frequently rearranged); they are spread out just enough to show slivers of scenes enacted on stage. A more coherent representation of these scenes is simultaneously projected on television monitors suspended around the theater.

Mr. Forsythe’s staging successfully keeps many balls in the air, but the two romantic narratives are not wholly compelling. Mr. Rizzi and Ms. Caspersen, who both possess considerable talent, gave it their best. Mr. Rizzi’s character is infantile and needy, appropriate enough considering that he’s meant to be a very young man. Ms. Caspersen’s romantic agony is replayed at so many layers of removal that it becomes purely cerebral. She narrates the progress not only of a remote celebrity, but of that celebrity in the guise of a dramatic persona. In all likelihood, we’re not meant to care.And yet we are not alienated enough from the plot threads to enjoy not caring.

In Act II, the romantic narratives intersect. Ms. Caspersen and Mr. Rizzi turn on each other and get caught in each other’s crossfire. This falls a bit flat, but Mr. Forsythe seems aware of it and keeps the second act down to about half the length of the first, another demonstration of his theatrical acumen.

Throughout “Kammer/Kammer,” a pack of dancers engages in collapsing and tumbling choreography that spatially connects with (but is also largely autonomous from) the romantic plotlines. For the most part, I watched the live dancers directly because there are unobstructed views of what they’re do ing onstage – without the mediation of the video recording or without the panels getting in the way.

Why isn’t there more dance? Mr. Forsythe’s stance on dance is ambiguous at the moment. But “Kammer/Kammer” follows in a recognizable progression from the dance pieces he has made over the last several decades. He uses the techniques of expressionism and the theater of alienation. The illusion making machinery of performance undermines our suspension of disbelief.

Many of Mr. Forsythe’s followers will miss a more active presence of dance in his current work. Nevertheless, I found myself intrigued by his slick manipulation of theatrical techniques.

Until May 6, at Howard Gilman Opera House (Brooklyn Academy of Music, 718-636-4100).