Matthew Bourne’s mix of dance/theater has been called “dance for people who don’t like dance.” This puts those who do like dance in a bit of a bind. Fans of its abstract nature, the way it says things that can’t be put into words, will find that Mr. Bourne instead approaches dance as a kind of very graceful mime. Appropriate, then, that “Play Without Words,” now at BAM, is like a panto for grown-ups – though instead of a fairy tale, we get a sinuous story of sexual subjugation.

Based on the early 1960s film “The Servant,” the piece introduces us to a nebbishy young Londoner, Anthony, a toff with a posh fiancee named Glenda. The new owner of a grand Chelsea home, he quickly hires himself a staff. But though the set, revolving every few minutes, reinforces the “upstairs-downstairs” structure of the home and culture, the gliding manservant Prentice seems intent on upsetting the age-old order.

Employing a campaign of subtle torture – like tossing Anthony’s girlfriend to muscle-bound trumpeter Speight – the bisexual butler breaks down the social code. Soon, the rich man is pouring the poor man’s drink and losing his chosen lover, the maid, to his valet’s grasp.

In a move as quintessentially 1960s as his source material, Mr. Bourne splits his main characters into several bodies – at any one time, there could be three Anthonys dancing with three Glendas, while just one Speight tries to take her away. Mr. Bourne usually bundles the pas-de-six rather tightly together, narratively speaking – even when one duet has draped itself over a banister, it still tells basically the same story as the other two.

Some of his best moments are his comic exploitation of his cubist approach: The valet can both dress and undress his master simultaneously; a hung-over Anthony literally “sees double.” All this is, as the title suggests, done without words. Instead of dialogue, Terry Davies provides a noodling jazz score, rich in movement and brass. Christopher Shutt’s gorgeous sound design has them practically playing in your ear.

The look of the piece, nipped out of New Wave cinema, is all slim skirts, fox collars, and the occasional velvet Nehru Jacket. Lez Brotherston, responsible for both clothes and set, goes for the more-is-more aesthetic – and not just because he has to build every costume three times. A corner of fashionable London, in fully forced perspective and with working lights, sits high on the wall behind Anthony’s home.

What with the red call boxes and the double-decker bus, it gets a little busy – as, I suppose, a street corner might. For most of the show, though, the set dominates the action. In one explosive combination, the blue-collar Speight bursts onto the scene, pounding from level to level, eventually swarming up and over the banister of Anthony’s home to run down the stairs and off. It’s a masterful moment, with one man commanding a whole bin of scenery.

But most of the time, Mr. Bourne colors inside the lines. Because of his reliance on comedy and mime, a piece can feel like a dessert course gone on too long, or an entr’acte that has taken over the performance. Most of the show is a bit like the party section at the beginning of “The Nutcracker,” the obligatory scene before we get to the Kingdom of the Sweets. A 90-minute show, with a 20-minute intermission, should never feel long. But just as Mr. Bourne’s frothy confection looks as though it will never have a center, we get to the nut.

Mr. Bourne’s genius is specifically defined: It lies in the on-stage seduction. After the long set up – a fraught game of blind-man’s bluff and attendant fantasizing – the tension between Anthony and his maid boils over. On a kitchen table, the two finally fall onto each other, though neither one can quite look at the other. All his choreographic imagination focuses on this moment, and Mr. Bourne finally makes the waiting worth it.

Mr. Bourne’s most famous production, “Swan Lake,” had a similar effect. Long party scenes and broad winks at the royal family (complete with animatronic corgis) seemed to waste the music. But when our Prince, troubled in mind and sexuality, dreamed a bare-chested chorus of male swans, the piece suddenly took flight. All the fluff that came before was blown away by a fierce, overwhelmingly muscular marriage of movement and image. Stay for the second half of “Play Without Words,” and you’ll get a similarly visceral punch – and it will leave you speechless.

Until April 2 (30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, 718-636-4100).