The recurring presence of the renowned German director Peter Stein in Russia over the last five years has been a key attribute of post-Soviet Russian theater.

Stein first was invited to Moscow in 1975, but it wasn't until his Russian Oresteia in 1993 that he took the plunge. Not that there weren't echoes of the past still rattling around; Stein arrived in Moscow for rehearsals the day the second putsch began. But he didn't flinch and hung on to stage a mammoth, eight-hour show that, at its best, confirmed his status as one of the world's top directors.

Stein returned with Italian actors in 1996 to rehearse and create a meticulous production of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. Now he has concluded two months of rehearsing Hamlet with a Russian cast. The show opened last Saturday and will run from Wednesday to Sunday through Nov. 1.

Before going on, let's dispense with potential problems of identification. Stein's Hamlet at the Russian Army Theater is not to be mistaken for that other new Hamlet, also staged by a famous foreigner whose name begins with the letters "ST." The Georgian director Robert Sturua unveiled his take on the classic Shakespeare play two weeks ago at the Satirikon; that set the stage for a frenzy of confusions and comparisons, none of which we shall indulge in here.

I'll say it now: Peter Stein's Hamlet is certainly a surprise. I don't mean Hamlet playing a saxophone, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern strumming the Beatles' Can't Buy Me Love on electric guitars or Hamlet's foray into a nightclub where wild, wiggling chicks chase after him to rub their bare breasts on his shirtless torso. You can do anything in theater if you do it well, so why not a sax-blowing Hamlet? Indeed, the image it cuts is wonderful.

What surprises is the haphazard, deflated feel of it all. Beyond the superficial tricks of the sax and a bit of sex, the rest, as Hamlet says before expiring, is silence.

Of the nine Hamlets I have attended in Moscow in the last four years, Stein's is the most lacking in purpose. I've seen worse productions – Leonid Trushkin's frenetic, whistle-stop tour of the play in 1994 comes to mind immediately – but none has been more aimless. Coming from a director who is famed for his painstaking attention to minutia and historical and social contexts, this comes as a shock.

Aside from a few colorful moments, Stein delivers what amounts to an uneventful reading of the play as a humanized family drama. There are some textual "innovations," of course. A traveling actor declares that he acts because he wants to eat, and Hamlet alters his speech in which he says it is impossible to play him like a pipe in order to suit the saxophone he holds in his hands. But this is window dressing that reveals none of the play's secrets.

As Hamlet, Yevgeny Mironov early exhibits a sorrowful, thoughtful charm. As he is drawn deeper into avenging Claudius' murder of his father, he becomes increasingly enraged – not with the insanity others perceive, but with a kind of out-of-control youthful impudence. Technically it is a fine performance, including his saxophone solos, but it reminded me of a paint-by-numbers picture, too calculated and too lacking in the roaming chaos and unexpected bursts of inspiration that life throws out in moments of critical change.

The other characters are staunchly one-dimensional. Aleksandr Feklistov is sullen and inaccessible as the murderous Claudius. Irina Kupchenko's Gertrude intently recedes into non-existence. Mikhail Filippov has some success creating a jovial, homey Polonius, Ophelia's protective daddy and the lord chamberlain ready to serve any king.

Yelena Zakharova's mannequin-like Ophelia stirs no drama as Hamlet's scorned lover. And why Stein sends her out to fake strumming an electric guitar just before succumbing to madness is one of this production's biggest oddities. Much publicity has heralded Mironov's specially learning to play the sax, which he does with some flair. If the image of Ophelia with a Stratocaster around her neck was so crucial, why wasn't the actress asked to learn a few chords? Her make-believe banging of the strings as dubbed sounds drift in through speakers is an unequivocal low point.

The set, credited to no one in the program, is a bare wooden platform surrounded by 600 seats arranged on the Army Theater's huge stage. But like so much else, its minimalism seldom becomes an integral part of the performance. Some action, such as the appearance of the ghost of Hamlet's father or of Prince Fortinbras in contemporary military camouflage, takes place on runways above and behind the spectators.

This Hamlet has all the trappings of a major production by a director of considerable talent. But it has none of the heart, soul or substance that could make it a great show. I have a nagging suspicion that Stein's participation in the Russian theater process is on the verge of exhausting itself.