NEW YORK -- In "33 Variations," which just closed last weekend, Jane Fonda gave a solid performance and looked very glamorous for a fatally ill musicologist. If only her role were more interesting.

Moises Kaufman's "33 Variations" presents artful arrangements (variations, if you will) of two interlocking stories that take place in different eras, but it is driven by stock, generalized characters, with predictable emotional arcs. In spite of having won the 2008 Steinberg/ATCA Award, the biggest national prize for a new play not yet produced in New York, "33 Variations" is a bagatelle rather than profound.

Still, if its most stimulating scenes resemble a musicology lecture, it's a pleasant lecture. Dr. Katherine Brandt (Fonda) has ALS, otherwise known as Lou Gehrig's disease. "33 Variations" merges elements of Margaret Edson's "Wit"--dying, prickly female academic-- with Peter Shaffer's "Amadeus"-- a composer's life examined.

Dr. Brandt is determined to discover why Beethoven wrote not one but 33 variations on a minor waltz by publisher Anton Diabelli (Don Amendolia, cheerful and so appealing he nearly steals focus). To complete a monograph, she gains entrance to his musical archives in Bonn. Beethoven drafted his ideas, rather than "composing in his head," like Mozart, she explains to her resentful, dilettante daughter, Clara (Samantha Mathis, rather subdued).

While Dr. Brandt struggles against time and her issues with her daughter, we also watch gruff Beethoven (exuberant Zach Grenier) losing his hearing and his assistant, Anton Schindler (subtly portrayed by Erik Steele) running interference for him with landlords and Diabelli himself. Dr. Brandt gains the trust of the at-first sternly Teutonic (a polite way of saying "stick-up-her-you-know-what") archivist Dr. Gertrude Ladenburger (Susan Kellerman), later known as "Gertie." Clara comes to take care of her mother, accompanied by boyfriend and male nurse Mike (sweetly played by Colin Hanks, son of Tom, who unfortunately gifted him with his ears).

The true star of the show is Jeff Sugg's projection design--when Dr. Brandt reads the manuscripts, the image projected on screens behind her (Derek McLane's brilliant set uses rolling panels of sheet music) lights the pencil erasures Beethoven made, and we share in Brandt's elation of discovery. Pianist Diane Walsh also shines, playing excerpts from each variation with subtlety, precision and elegance.

When Beethoven describes each beat of one of the variations while Ms. Walsh plays, heads nod all over the house, as the audience finds a deeper appreciation of the music. Occasionally Kaufman gets carried away with the parallel structure--the end of Act I, involving a fugue of voices, is impressive but hard to follow. Other bold choices pay off better, including an at-first embarrassing and then transcendent leap into song in Act 2.

Still, Dr. Brandt's desire to discover Beethoven's motivation is an implausible device--it's not a murder mystery to be "solved," and having the play rest on it feels contrived. Similarly, her issues with intimacy towards her family and friend feel more forced than earned.

However, Fonda convincingly portrays Dr. Brandt's physical deterioration and emotional evolution. Is it a Tony-worthy performance? No--largely because the role is overshadowed by bigger, more powerful roles in a year full of theatrical treasures.