At the very least, the Babel Theatre Project is headed in the right direction. The company debuts at the Medicine Show Theatre with “Pilgrims,” Jamie Carmichael’s earnest new play about sad young people and their commitment to the production almost distracts from its missteps. The writer, director, and cast exude a try-it-and-see energy that results in such experiments as multiple actors playing the same role and making sound effects with their mouths. At first, the risks pay off: There’s a sting of surprise in the skewed look at a troubled college student causing her loved ones pain. But those flashes of brilliance will have to point to a promising future. They cannot save “Pilgrims,” which finally loses its way.

Lauren (Emily Young) is a stock young misfit who shows her loneliness by seducing family servants or telling symbolic stories about water birds. Joining Lauren are her sensitive classmate Alvie (Rufus Tureen), her therapist brother Serge (Eric Murdoch), and his patient/lover Tamara (Catherine Gowl).They’re all suffering, too, and Mr. Carmichael gives each character a monologue about his specific sadness.

This may sound rote, but there’s a lovely plot twist to suggest that all the sadness is alike, that Ms. Young and company are all dealing with painful memories they can’t shake. To underscore this point, the playwright distorts time. We hear quickly about awful things and then skip to the moments when they rise up again.

When it faces the effect of reliving the past, the play ignites. In the opening moments, for example, Alvie and Serge flank the stage, faces blank as they beat their legs in a rhythm that evokes a rumbling train. Sitting on the train are Tamara and her brother David, whose death is what sent her to therapy. David is played by Ms. Young, but the gender swap isn’t a gimmick – it suggests that the four main characters are so consumed by their memories that they’re lost inside them. These people become the train, the brother, the peripheral friends: It’s as if the play itself is a vicious ritual that forces them over and over through the past.

Director Geordie Broadwater helps the cast give these lost identities a physical language. Hovering between melodrama and realism, the actors move with stylized technique but speak with casual voices. They use broken sentences and stand in off-kilter clumps. The effect is unsettling because it gives us characters who ape real emotion without quite getting it. They’re too hollowed by sadness to feel.

If the script rode out this aching terrain, it might uncover something remarkable. Mr. Carmichael, though, shoots for last-minute hope. To get there, he turns to inscrutable plot devices involving bird feathers and apartment keys, and revises his characters into folks who have outbursts. Since there’s no buildup from choked emotion to ultimate expression, these late scenes play false.

Of the cast, only Ms. Gowl nails the heartbreak scenes. The rest stick to stylization, as does Mr. Broadwater’s blocking. Even Mr. Carmichael can’t resist a few more on-stage sound effects, which results in a production that fights its own conclusions. Hopefully, next time the Babel team will take a step back and make sure their production follows through on their fascinating instincts.

Until July 29 (549 W. 52nd Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, 212-352-3101).