By Jackie Demaline
The Cincinnati Enquirer

When the intermission began for Twelfth Night at Northern Kentucky University, continuing Tuesday through Sunday, the guy in front of me stood up and joked to his friends that he wanted to get a little exercise in between naps.

What's most painful about this production of the Bard's lovely romantic comedy of disguises and loss is that I have the feeling a lot of the student cast could have pulled it off, if they'd been given the chance.

Instead, only Bridget Conforti as Viola, a girl disguised as a boy who falls for a duke, and Matthew Wilson as the fool Feste rise above an incoherent approach to the classic by director Sandra Forman.

Her intent perhaps may be gleaned from her director's notes in the program, which speak of "exaggerated examples of human nature" and the "undemanding" world of the play in which there is "always time for leisurely courtship, for songs and for practical jokes."

Alas, what results on stage is many actors striking hard on a single characteristic so that they have no dimension or complexity and are therefore of little interest. The lethargic pace allows the audience to wonder about certain large holes in logic. (For instance: Viola's "identical" brother Sebastian is a full head taller than she. How come nobody notices the disparity?)

There's one primary set of questions that every actor has to answer, which apparently haven't been asked here:

Who are you? What do you want? Is your behavior consistent with the answers to those questions?

Melancholy is a theme that opens the show, played in Elizabethan dress in a setting that vaguely resembles a temple grounds from Greek myth.

Duke Orsino (Phillip Webster) is undone because he loves Olivia (Jesselee Whitson), who spurns him as she indulges in an extended mourning for her deceased brother (but quickly tumbles into love with the disguised Viola).

Mr. Webster, who looks like he would have been a dandy romantic hero, instead plays Orsino as a posturing fop (and very well). But that begs the question, why does Viola fall for him? (And why should the audience root for this match?)

Ms. Whitson's performance consists of elegant speechifying. Olivia can be a wonderfully complex character, but she's bloodless in Ms. Whitson's hands (oddly enough, making her a better match for Mr. Webster's self-involved Orsino than Viola ever would be).

Twelfth Night contains some of the great comic roles in Shakespeare, foremost among them Olivia's ambitious steward Malvolio, who has thoughts above his station.

Again, it would have been fun to see Andrew Bernhard take a real run at him (he has nice moments in the second act). But he hasn't asked himself the key question "why does everyone actively dislike this character?" and then behaved accordingly, so the audience can understand it, too.

The band of merry pranksters led by Sir Toby Belch (Christopher Wesselman) share no relationship to speak of. Not just their words but their actions must - but don't - define what they are to each other.

Twelfth Night, through Sunday, Northern Kentucky University Fine Arts Center, Highland Heights. (859) 572-5464.

E-mail jdemaline@enquirer.com