Seeing a mediocre show on the Great White Way is always disappointing. But seeing a mediocre show on Broadway with a great cast and creative team is downright depressing.  Unfortunately, that’s exactly the case with the new musical “Big Fish,” currently playing at the Neil Simon Theatre.

Directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman (“The Producers”) and starring Norbert Leo Butz (“Dirty Rotten Scoundrels”), “Fish” is fantastic on paper but fails to translate to the stage. It’s the story of tall tale-teller Edward Bloom (Butz), a traveling salesman who spends his life sharing stories that seem too big to be true with his son, Will (Bobby Steggert). When Will grows up and decides he wants to know the truth about his father’s past, he uncovers a hidden history that his father hoped would remain a secret.

For a show focused on the motif of storytelling, “Fish” certainly does not know how to invest its audience in the story. Andrew Lippa’s score is forgettable, while John August’s book does little to build the world of the musical.

Stroman’s direction feels scattered at best and desperate at worst. It is hard to believe this is the same individual who directed “The Producers” when basic inconsistencies plague “Fish.” Why does Will wear a tie on a fishing trip of all places? If this takes place in present day, why is there a television set from the 1970s on stage? The creative team needed to be more attentive to the details of the production.

The flashbacks to Edward’s stories exhibit similar laziness. With a 46-year-old man playing a teenager, for example, projecting enormous photographs of him as a homecoming king is not a great idea — the pictures make Butz look like a middle-aged man playing dress-up.

Butz is the strongest actor on stage, but he, like the rest of the cast, is poorly served by the material.  Steggert  has almost nothing substantial to work with — he has a few songs, but they’re boring and uninspired, and simply unpleasant to listen to.  Kate Baldwin, as Edward’s wife Sandra, has a few nice moments, but they’re just that — moments.

“Big Fish” is made of up those moments, which more often than not feel disconnected and random.  One moment the show is in a circus, then it moves to Will’s childhood bedroom and then it shifts to Central Park. The jumps are so inconsistent, with no thematic arc linking them together, that it makes it impossible to form a connection with any of the characters.

Throughout the musical, Will continually wants to know why his father feels the need to tell these seemingly pointless larger-than-life stories. And leaving the theater, it’s difficult not to sympathize with him. There’s nothing harder than sitting through a story that you simply don’t care about.

A version of this article appeared in the Tuesday, Nov. 5 print edition. Dylan Jarrett is books/theater editor. Email her at [email protected].