Stage First completes its season with the final entry in the Alexander the Great cycle of plays by artistic director Nicholas Korn. This episode, which condenses the first two and adds a closing chapter, is vastly better than the earlier entries — which is not to say it is good theater.

        Mr. Korn never has been able to bring Alexander and his adventures to life. So like the first two works that preceded it, this three-plus hour finale is merely presentational: Alexander came, saw and conquered the Thebans. Then he came, saw and conquered the Persians. Then he came, saw and conquered India.

        Then he dies at 33.

        Alexander the Great is more information than drama because Mr. Korn doesn't wonder what drove Alexander to rule the ancient world. Unexplored are myriad personal subjects, from the hardship in accomplishing the seemingly impossible to the conqueror's relationships with his close comrades.

        What of his world? We hear of the deserts of Egypt, the lavish palaces of Persia, the monsoons of India, but we never feel them, and neither do the characters. If they weren't in togas, they could be in a corporate conference room, so untouched are they by the world around them. They don't feel heat or cold or exhaustion. All they do is talk.

        Although the talk is elegant and worthy of a classics scholar, it doesn't illuminate Alexander or an extraordinary life.
       

Theater majors

        The action unfolds on a well-conceived platform set by Harwood Gordon, which carries the spirit of ancient Greece.

        Alexander (Jack Lazzaro) first comes into conflict with his father Philip (Bob Elkins), whose dislike of his son seems mere royal petulance. Did the aging king see his ambitious son as a rival? The script doesn't raise the question.

        Mr. Lazzaro has the requisite curling hair and noble brow and does very well with what there is of his role. He is a sophomore at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and one of the best things about this Alexander is how much theater majors from CCM and Wright State bring to it.

        Philip uses his wife's claim of an immaculate conception of Alexander to disown them both and take a young bride. By the end of the act, Philip has been murdered, and Alexander is in charge.

        In Act 2, Alexander conquers Persia. The cowardly, ambivalent and self-loving Persian emperor Darius is potentially the most intriguing character in Alexander. Ken Early made the most of the role last season; Derek Hake gets the job done but doesn't show as much interesting dimension.

        The new Act 3 is something of a jumble. Trusted comrade Cleitus (a strong David Hughes) gets drunk and starts talking about how Alexander has abandoned his men, which is an understandable motive and conflict, but it's also a giant “huh?”

        Because there are no clues to the passage of time on stage, we have to accept Mr. Korn's word that there's a problem.
       

Working hard

        This is a mammoth undertaking, and it's clear that everybody is working hard, but they're not always working to best advantage.

        For example: A battle in India is performed in slow motion under red light — very dramatic, except that everybody has been talking about the endless monsoons. Did they suddenly forget the torrential rain, the wet, the mud? We need to be there.

        Director David Edwards does a good job of keeping the energy up and moving more than a dozen actors around the stage, but there's only so much one can do with one-dimensional characters.

        Reminder: Curtain time is 7:30 p.m., to allow for the three-hour, 15-minute running time.
        Alexander the Great, Stage First, Aronoff Center Fifth Third Bank Theater, through June 2. 241-7469.

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