Has Charles Busch, the purveyor of camp classics like Vampire Lesbians of Sodom and Die Mommie Die, gone high-brow? His latest comedy, Ibsen’s Ghost, steers away from familiar Hollywood tropes for that revered theatrical innovator, Henrik Ibsen. The 19th-century Norwegian playwright had a sensibility that was grounded in realism, far from the winking, drag-wearing camp approach of Busch. Still the two share an eagerness for envelope-pushing shock value — which ought to have been enough to elevate this comedy, which opened Thursday at Off Broadway’s Primary Stages at 59E59 Theaters.

Busch stars as Suzannah Ibsen, widow of the great playwright, who struggles to maintain her husband’s legacy and expensive home, which is given a storybook stateliness in Shoko Kambara’s set design. The great man’s longtime publisher (Christopher Borg, a Busch regular) rejects her cache of banal domestic correspondence, her prolifically literary stepmother (Judy Kaye, in fine form) needles her about her life, and her long-suffering maid (the hilarious Jen Cody) stumbles about with a severe limp that has “evolved into a vaudeville routine.” Then one of Henrik’s former mistresses (Jennifer Van Dyck) arrives with a plan to publish a book proclaiming herself as the model for Nora in A Doll’s House — a claim that Suzannah had reserved for herself. And a strapping sailor (Thomas Gibson, game but unconvincing) washes up and makes googly eyes at Suzannah, an overture she welcomes despite the fact that he’s Henrik’s illegitimate son.

Busch’s writing, while studded with witty rejoinders, seems constrained by the loftiness of the inspiration, an effect that is further enhanced by Carl Andress’s demure direction. Even the late arrival of a clairvoyant exterminator dubbed the Rat Wife (also played by Borg) does little to catapult the plot into over-the-top hilarity. Ibsen’s Ghost elicits smiles, even the occasional chuckle, but never unbridled laughter.