You can almost hear Lucy, upon exchanging her psychiatrist booth for a seat on the aisle, yelling down to the stage and the kid in the yellow sweater with the black zigzag stripe. “You're a good man, Charlie Brown, but you lack charisma!”

        The affable Peanuts musical has joined the Hot Summer Nights repertory at University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music. It stars, of course, Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus and his blanket, Shroeder and his piano, little sister Sally and Snoopy.

        A collection of connected songs and comedy sketches inspired by the comic strip world of Charles Schulz plays out on a comic page-inspired stage.

        We know Snoopy will battle the Red Baron. Charlie Brown will sigh over the Little Red-Haired Girl. Lucy will plot to be queen. Would we want it to be any other way?

        The Hot Summer Nights production of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown gets a lot of mileage out of our fond familiarity with the material. But where is the zing?

        Co-directors/choreographers Richard Hess and Greg Hellems seem to have forgotten why musicals exist. It's because they have to. It's because sometimes feelings are so big they can only burst out in song and dance.

        This is a capable Charlie Brown, but it is for the most part joyless. This student company plans to go into the profession. Capable is not good enough.

        In the title role, sophomore Beau Clark couldn't quite persuade me that he believes he's a hapless but loyal and true little Everyboy. But he has years of training ahead of him.

        Jacquelyn Vanderbeck does have the focus and the needed fire in the belly. She delivers Sally's big solo “My New Philosophy” as the crowd-pleaser it is.

        Lisa Marie Morabito's Lucy is as much forced as forceful. On opening night, Lucy featured a pronounced lisp at the top of the show which then came and went, suggesting a need for concentration to either keep it or lose it.

        Neal Shrader has an easy charm as incipient philosopher Linus, but Blake Ginther falls back on the tried-and-true as Shroeder. He's too much Matthew Perry at his most bemused on Friends.

        Will Ray has some nice moments as Snoopy, but this gangbusters part culminates in the showstopper “Suppertime.” The choreography is tepid, considering Mr. Ray's ability as a dancer, and he doesn't sell the song to the rafters.

        The show looks exactly as it should, the design team recovering from its surprising missteps in Mattress.

        You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, continuing in rep through Aug. 17, Patricia Corbett Theater. 556-4183.

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