The most fanciful part of Christopher Barreca’s set design for the Ellen Fitzhugh (book and lyrics) and Michael John LaChiusa (music) musical, “Los Otros,” is above the set. Worn chairs, toys and other odds and ends hang from the ceiling. This lackluster musical about the immigration experience is making its world premiere at the Mark Taper Forum.

According to the program notes, this piece is semi-autobiographical and one assumes this means that Fitzhugh is the Caucasian woman in the first act who grows up in National City (south of San Diego). Perhaps blinded by personal attachment, this is the weakest portion  of this new piece. Michele Pawk, whose previous credits include “Hairspray,” “Mamma Mia!” “Chicago” and “Cabaret” on Broadway, no doubt can sing, but you wouldn’t know it from this piece.

Fitzhugh’s musical is more talk with a sing-song voice and with Pawk this meanders sometimes into what could be perceived as flat-toned, cringe-worthy vocalizations. There are no soaring melodies or memorable, toe-tapping tunes.

“Somos tres niñas,” the unnamed woman  begins. “Daddy says some girls grow up too fast,” she explains while dressed in a wine-colored, black-lace trimmed negligee and sitting on a sorry-looking couch. There’s nothing more than permanent than temporary housing that her family finds themselves in in National City. The woman and her friends are 11, 10 and 9 years of age. Beautiful puffy white clouds rise against a bright blue sky, but the ground isn’t a carpet. Silty gray sand covers the stage, but it’s far from romantic beach time. The neglected beach vibe is strong and suggests an over-sized sand ashtray (Do these still exist in SoCal?).

“We draw and redesign paper dolls we make instead of buy,” the woman warbles. Then one day, they witness a man, a woman and a baby jumping off a train and then hiding in a tunnel.  For three days, the three girls take banana bread and hard-boiled eggs to the family. This is in 1952.

Over ten years later, the woman is living in Burbank. She’s divorced had three kids and works at Pacbell, but not for long, one suspects. Her ex-husband helps her find an illegal housekeeper in Tijuana. Suddenly, “somos tres niñas y una mujer” but this doesn’t last long.

A few years later, the woman’s life takes a turn for the worse. Are we supposed to celebrate her drunken one-nighter with a young, strange virile Latino?

The woman’s experiences with immigrants are superficial. Talking about people that she never met or a man she never knew except in the biblical sense seems to slender a thread. This seems like a case of writing about what you don’t know about.

The second act of this intermission-less 90-minute production is much more entertaining. Julio Monge is the unnamed man. He’s Latino and legal, but not particularly sexy because he’s an accountant. The man’s tale begins in Carlsbad where he works as a stock boy, or really a janitor.

Monge handles the music with considerable charm and less dissonance. Is this by design or mistake? It’s hard to tell. The man’s story takes us to the fields where the family helps pick plums and the man–as a young boy, gets his first sexual experience with another boy.

Director Graciela Daniele could do more with the first half and somehow the whimsical nature suggested by the floating chairs and other items never comes to fruition.

This isn’t an in-depth view of life as “Los Otros.” The others are the Latinos, but in the first half, they are mere acquaintances. There’s very little meditation on the issues of race and the differing communities in areas of Los Angeles or San Diego. The character of the man is more intriguing and one wishes we had gotten to know him better.

LaChiusa’s music doesn’t transport us anywhere and I don’t foresee any of the songs becoming hits on any billboard.

“Los Otros” continues until 1 July 2012 at the Mark Taper Forum. Tuesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 1 p.m . and 6:30 p.m. Dark on Mondays. $20-$65.