The island of Prospero is a wonderful one and that wonder is brought home in the Orlando Shakespeare Festival's production of The Tempest, which opened at the Lake Eola Amphitheater Saturday night. Director Stuart Omans has captured most of the phantasmagorical atmosphere of this difficult play.

Most impressive in Omans' production is the talent he has assembled for it - talent apparent in the exquisite costumes, in the often startling stage effects and especially in many of the performances, which bring the story to life.

The Tempest, which scholars think was  Shakespeare's last play, is also one of his most intricate: Scholars and critics have never agreed about exactly what it means, and even the plot can seem complicated. The story revolves around a man named Prospero, the deposed Duke of Milan, who has taken refuge with his daughter, Miranda, on an enchanted tropical island. There the embittered Prospero rules, with the help of a spirit named Ariel and a monster-slave named Caliban. And there he brings about a great tempest, or storm, which wrecks a ship carrying his enemies.

Refugees from the shipwreck are scattered about the island, and one of them, a young prince named Ferdinand, meets Miranda and falls in love. Ariel torments the ringleaders of the plot against Prospero, and the resentful Caliban tries to enlist two drunken servants to overthrow his master. Finally Prospero takes pity on his captives. He forgives their sins, blesses the union of Ferdinand and Miranda and, abdicating his magical powers, prepares to return to the real world.

The distractions of our own real world invade the world of Prospero: Swans honk on Lake Eola and motorcycles race their engines up Rosalind Avenue. But the fantastic creations of The Tempest's tropical island pull even harder at our attention. Prospero emerges suddenly from a blinding mist, thanks to technical director Michael Reese's own wizardry; a feast disappears in a dazzling blaze of light. The slender spirit

Most of The Tempest takes place during the calm after a storm, but Omans' production too often feels as if it, too, is becalmed: It rarely moves as quickly as it might. Still, Omans has chosen his actors wisely and used them well. Many of them shine in fairly small parts.

Kristina Wright's Miranda, for instance, is not the bland little ingenue of many productions: She's innocent, yes, but also spirited and funny. Omar Carter has the brightness and the grace necessary for any Ariel, but he also discovers a wide-eyed wonder at the human feelings that he, as a spirit, cannot share. Ronald Drewes, whose Petruchio delivers so much life to the festival's Taming of the Shrew, brings to Caliban not only the necessary physical strength - this character spends almost all of his time onstage crouched on his haunches - but also anger, frustration and, yes, even humanity, often all at once.

As Prospero, Paul Wegman is never the grand and mighty ruler that other productions have shown. This Prospero can be fierce, certainly, but more often what we see in this tired old man are more human emotions. Wegman beautifully shows the changes that overcome Prospero; when he finally kneels to the level of the savage Caliban, it's a simple, lovely thing.

Others do well in smaller roles - Don Capparella as a wonderfully goofy Ferdinand; the rubber-faced Bruce Edward Barton as a squeaky-voiced jester; Todd Patrick Breaugh as Prospero's unrepentant brother, Antonio, and Lawrence Bull as his dopey, sycophantic sidekick.

Too often this Tempest works in fits and starts: Prospero's hellhounds aren't loud or scary enough, and a banquet table that is supposed to disappear isn't visible enough to begin with.

But the feeling of Shakespeare's intricate work almost always comes across. When Ariel asks if Prospero loves him, we understand the immensity of the range of human and non-human emotions; when Caliban cries as he recalls the island's magical sounds, humanity reaches out to embrace him as well. The Tempest is very much like that enchanted island: There's something for everyone on it, and its gifts seem new and wondrous every time.