We’re all suckers for Dead Poets Society-esque tales of the inspiring relationships that can form between teacher and student. But regardless of the fact that The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is certainly a much more cautionary tale than some of its contemporaries, Studio Theatre’s production, largely because of a lackluster lead, does nothing to solidify its place in the canon.

Jean Brodie is an iconoclastic school teacher, who embraces the humanities passionately, decries science for its stuffiness, and scoffs at conventional morality. She focuses her educational efforts on four adolescent girls, deeming them the “creme de la creme” of her crop of students. We learn early on that one of these students will eventually betray her, ostensibly to the schoolmistress who finds Brodie’s methods questionable at best.

The choice of Sarah Marshall for the title character is a confounding one. For one thing, she seems too old for the part. At first, this is just a hunch, but eventual script references to the character being in her 40s prove it a sound one. What Marshall lacks in youth, she unfortunately doesn’t make up in magnetism. She doesn’t exude the kind of sex appeal that would engineer frequent proposals from the stable Mr. Lowther (the engaging Richard Stirling), or torrid obsession from the philandering Mr. Lloyd (David Adkins). Marshall is at her strongest during her incensed scenes with the conservative school principle (a perfectly stern Catherine Flye). But overall, she’s a caricature; Miss Brodie comes off more as an eccentric cook than an inspiring figurehead, which is unfortunate, because the character seems as if she could be much more complex in the hands of another actress.