Instead of depending upon the buffonery to resolve the thematic problems of Shakespeare’s “Cymbeline,” the Fiasco Theater’s production brings top notch musicality and timing for a bracing, well-edited love story. This is an extremely spare production conceived by Jessie Austrian, Noah Brody and Ben Steinfeld, so if costumes are your favorite type of eye candy, you’re doomed for disappointment. Lovers of words and vocal harmony will be delighted.

Directors Brody and Steinfeld begin us with a song–it’s the usual warning about cell phones but done with exceptional style and sets the tone. Costume designer Whitney Locher sets the tone for the evening–low key browns and beiges with some white. The men’s pants and the women’s dresses could pass for normal fair in the Midwest and pass without a comment in Los Angeles. The set pieces are various trunks (designed by Jacques Roy) and some of them are trickier than others, giving us a bloodless and even amusing beheading.

There are not usually beheadings in Shakespearean romances, especially those that end happily. That’s just one of the tricky parts of this particular play. Cymbeline (Andy Grotelueschen) is the name a king of Britain, who reigned during time when the Roman Empire still included England. Yet the king is not the main character of this play; his children are.

Cymbeline had three children. His two sons were abducted and are believed dead. His only child is a daughter, Imogen (Jessie Austrian), who is in love with the poor Posthumus (Noah Brody). Imogen and Posthumus married without the consent of the king and the king banishes Posthumus. Posthumus flees to Rome. In Rome, he makes a bet with the Italian Iachimo (Ben Steinfeld), betting that Imogen will be faithful and chaste against Iachimo’s attempts to seduce her.

Iachimo travels to England and meets Imogene, but does not seduce her. Instead, he contrives to fool Posthumus who then orders his servant (Paul L. Coffey) to kill her. Oh, how quickly love turns to hate and malicious gossip accepted as fact. And that is one of the main problems of this play.

The other is the fate of the odious stepbrother of Imogen. When Cymbeline was widowed, he remarried and the current queen (Emily Young) has a son, Cloten (Grotelueschen). The queen plots to have Imogen marry Cloten because then her son would be king, but we soon enough learn that Cloten is not fit to be king.

That untidy thread is cut short; Cloten dies for boorish behavior and his mother is also dead by the end of the play. What Cloten did was, in the manners of the time, perfectly acceptable if he had just been insulting peasants, but he wasn’t.

This is the second production of “Cymbeline” that has been presented this fall in Los Angeles. Both had ensemble members play more than one role. Now in this case Cloten looks suspiciously like Cymbeline (they are, after all, played by the same actor). This makes one suspect that perhaps there was some hanky panky and Cloten might be a prince (and thus ends up killing his half-brothers).

In the case of another recent production of “Cymbeline” by our resident classical theater group, A Noise Within, Cloten and Posthumus were played by the same actor. Posthumus was played straight, but Posthumus was a ridiculous fop.  That production was less successful in keeping an even tone to this play and dealing with the thematic problems. It was certainly more colorful with period costuming.

Yet Fiasco Theater’s usage of music with the players singing in tight harmonies makes smooth transitions and many of the players also play instruments (guitars, banjos, etc.). The fight scenes also have some surprises (Noah Brody is also the fight director). These players are essentially good musicians who have perfectly matched the melodic lines of Shakespeare’s “Cymbeline” with luscious transitions of beautiful vocals and acoustic music.

“Cymbeline” continues until 23 December 2012 at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica. For more information, visit the Broad Stage website.