Dark figures loom just behind you, and you wait in horror for their clammy touch - a sudden hand on your arm, perhaps, or a feathery finger to the back of your neck.

That touch never comes:  after all you're part of the audience of a Shakespeare play, not a character in Halloween XII.

But the Orlando-UCF Shakespeare Festival's Macbeth rarely fails to remind you: things do go bump in the night.

Director Michael Carleton and his company lead a wild ride of the imagination in the Shakespeare Festival's new production, which gains immeasurably from its intimate setting in the tiny theater at the Orange County Historical Theatre.  With festival favorites, Eric Hissom as the power-crazed usurper to the Scottish throne, this Macbeth shows exactly why Shakespeare's bloody drama pulls in the crowd.

Performed with only eight actors in twenty-eight roles, this scaled-down production doesn't consistently make Shakespeare's language as clear as it might, and one or  two of the players in very minor roles do not measure up.

Yet the strength and the company of the dramatic power of the show's eerie theatrics are sure to keep your nerves jangling and your eyes and ears open wide.

Macbeth is one of the shortest plays and also one of the easiest to follow:  there is no subplot to complicate the story of the murderous lord and his wife.  Carleton's production benefits from that simplicity.  It may not have been easy for him to shave off half a dozen or more characters or to do a little judicious reworking of the script, chiefly at the start and finish of the show's first act.  But it's certainly easy for audiences to understand the story when there's little to distract you from the murders at hand.

Little, that is, but the creepy beauty of the festival's theatrics -- the gaunt, graceful Japanese stick puppets, called Bunraku, that represent the witches; the elegantly masked figure of Banquo's ghost; the distorted sounds in the dark. When Macbeth imagines the dagger with which he has murdered the Scottish king, his feverish mind conjures it floating in the air before him; you see the arm that holds it, attached to a black-garbed actor, but the illusory effect is the same.

Nearly everything in the production contributes to the effect of artifice and reality rolled into one. The tempestuous sky and razor-sharp mountains of the simple set are clearly painted background, not reality. The scarlet robes and golden chains of Macbeth and his lady's costumes are merely pieces of old-fashioned masquerade worn over modern black street clothes.

Most of the actors move from character to character in much the same way: You know it's the same actor, but you're willing to suspend your disbelief. Jonathan Croy starts out as a hearty, confident Duncan, the king of Scotland; after his death, Croy becomes a comically irascible porter in Macbeth's castle and then a murderer, all to equally good effect.

Others in the ensemble have a vivid presence, especially Richard B. Watson as Macbeth's comrade Banquo and Scott Hodges as Malcolm, the rightful claimant to the throne. 

Richard Width makes a graceful Macduff, the play's eventual hero, although he and Hodges are swallowed up in one long stretch of dialogue whose obscurities do the entire scene in.

Stephanie Roberts, a Disney actor new to Orlando theater, is a strongly sensual Lady Macbeth, whose equal attraction to her husband and to power are altogether clear.

And Hissom, always an intense actor, makes a compelling Macbeth from the moment he rolls his eyes at the witches' first apparently ridiculous prophecy. Hissom stretches your perceptions of this familiar character beyond ambition: You see his bravery, his cockiness, his mania, all wound into one. You see Macbeth as play-actor, the man who tries to convince his comrades he has no blood on his hands. And, most interesting, you see Macbeth as sympathetic being, a murderer who wears his tormented soul on his sleeve.

Such torment may seem familiar in the confines of the historical museum's little theater, where the festival already has introduced its audiences to the torments of Frankenstein and Edgar Allan Poe. It's good to see those gothic horrors give way to the deeper pleasures of Shakespeare. And it's doubly good to see Shakespeare presented with all of his visceral power intact.

Macbeth is one of the Bard's most popular, and bloodiest, tales. It tells the story of vain Scottish nobleman Macbeth and his lust for the Scottish crown. His quest becomes increasingly complicated as the forces around him, such as his equally power-hungry wife and the prophecies of three witches, raise his vanity to new heights and drive him to deceitful and murderous extremes.

The opening moments of this production immediately set the tone for what's to come. Darkness falls upon the OSF's tiny theater as you hear the whisper of eerie winds, the clank of chain-mail and the groan of pained voices. It's a moment of true dread, one that leaves you white-knuckled and thinking anything is possible. From out of that darkness appear the three witches (portrayed well with puppetted masks) to offer the audience the play's dread-filled prologue. From there, madness and murder follow in suit, which comes across with such conviction that you might find yourself looking over your shoulder several times just to make sure it's only a play.

Director Michael Carleton does a spectacular job in both establishing and keeping the eerie mood, and in having his performers use just about every inch of the theater, including the aisles, the area behind the audience and the hallway outside the auditorium.  Because of this, the audience experiences the production from all angles and hears every whisper and breath taken. As a result, the energy level remains high and the audience gets continuously drawn deeper into the play The final result is one of the most intimate and unnerving versions of Macbeth this reporter has ever seen.

Richard B. Watson, in his debut season with the OSF, brings great nobility and naturalness to Banquo. His performance may just be the best thing in this fine production. When he's on stage, the production rises to a higher level of excellence. The same can be said for Jonathan Croy (also in his debut season), who in playing three characters, gives a full spectrum of dramatic personae here. First, he is the noble Duncan, then the gentle, comical porter and finally one of the play's most brutal murderers. It jars the senses when you laugh at him in one scene, then see him knife someone in the next. (Director Carleton wisely employs this technique—the use of characters reciprocally— throughout the play. One of my favorite paradoxes occurs with Roberts who also plays the son of Macduff. When the son is murdered, you see the fear in his eyes and you also get a sense of recognition from Lady Macbeth that perhaps she realizes the extremes of her crimes.)