The Theater for a New Audience production of “Souls of Naples,” a combination sexual farce and poignant rumination, feels chock-full of spirits. Characters complain of floating elephant heads, doomed lovers may still stalk the halls, and even the simple act of pouring coffee seems haunted by a sense of a vanishing past. But there is one “unseen hand” missing in it all and without it, the show shudders and jerks. Roman Paska, a director famous for his puppetry, leaves his actors stranded here. Despite a many colored, central performance by John Turturro, the show cannot depend on him alone for its gravity.

Now comfortably at home at the Duke on 42nd Street, the Theater for a New Audience commissioned this lilting translation of Eduardo de Filippo’s play from Michael Feingold. The resulting piece seems like Feydeau meets Pirandello – lots of naughty double entendres punctuating a philosophical investigation into the veils of reality. For all those directors who have tried to wrestle Pirandello’s metatheatrics onto the stage, this reminder of de Filippo should fire the imagination. Sadly, the production itself does not serve as his best recommendation.

Pasquale Lojacono (Mr. Turturro) has recently taken over a splendid set of rooms in an ancient Neapolitan palazzo. Desperate to provide for his pretty young wife Maria (Francesca Vannucci), Pasquale wants to rent out the rooms, but a nasty reputation for ghostly visitors keeps the paying guests away.

Maria has a visitor of her own, a lover Alfredo (Juan Carlos Hernandez), who boldly wanders in and out. Poor Pasquale, certain Alfredo must be one of the promised phantoms, studiously ignores him. Pasquale also blindly accepts the appearance of unexpected money in his pockets, chalking it up to helpful poltergeists. But the world and his disappointed wife see him as a pimp, selling Maria’s honor for a handful of lire.

In the absence of directorial guidance, the actors have each decided on a different play to perform. Mr. Turturro’s marvelously slippery performance accommodates them all – he can, by turns, scream like a girl if something goes bump and speak with deep seriousness about losing his love. In a virtuoso moment, he discusses his morning coffee, calling over our heads to an unseen neighbor. Two enormous outlines of Napoletana macchinettas (the two-part coffeemakers) grace the curtain, so we know the fetish is important. But Mr. Turturro still surprises us with his lonely, lovely ode to his little treat, the only pleasure in his life he can control.

The others don’t have his luxury of solo reflection. Even Rocco Sisto, playing Alfredo’s chiding brother-in-law, can’t come up with a character in a vacuum. Both the zest of the sexual farce and the sadness of the misunderstood Pasquale need to derive from Maria’s relationship to her suitors. Ms. Vannucci, lovely though she is, hasn’t been steered toward one or the other of her lovers. Instead of playing notes of romance or sensuality, Mr. Paska has her sit impassively – eyes lowered – throughout. If Maria doesn’t care which lover wins her, why would we?

Occasionally the show betrays how much it wants to be an adorable comedy. The doorman Raffaele (Max Casella) has his own, nonspiritual ways of making things disappear, and he and Mr. Turturro clearly enjoy their little squabbles over missing melons. Once Alfredo’s abandoned wife shows up (in an entrance that recalls Pirandello’s “Six Characters in Search of an Author”), a chaos of shrieking women and sheet-draped lovers should drive us to laughter and Pasquale nearly to madness. Muddled staging, though, leaves us to imagine a funnier scrum in its place.

Donna Zakowska designs an attractive set, built out of printed gauzes and a mossy floor – but it’s not a set for comedy, with no doorways to pop through or cubbyholes to hide in. Then Stephen Strawbridge’s bright lighting chases the shadows, and all possibilities of spookiness, away. In some future production, “Souls of Naples” could be like an Italian “Noises Off,” with just missed entrances and “magically” appearing props. Or it could be a gorgeous atmospheric, with real ghosts pressing down on our imagined ones from behind the walls. But what it must have, and here does not have, is pace, excitement, meaning, relationships, and fun.

Until May 8 (229 W. 42nd Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, 212-239-6200).