"Stars, hide your fires. Let not light see my black and deep desires." True to the play's dark imagery, the Royal Shakespeare Company's new production of "Macbeth" is steeped in visions of the night.

Gregory Doran's direction begins almost imperceptibly with soft drumbeats, wailing sighs -- then suddenly tips us into nightmare. Scarcely pausing for breath, one scene snaps at the heels of the next, and Macbeth's journey from ambitious soldier to fate-defying king is all over in 130 minutes. There is no interval. The risk in such swiftness is loss of subtlety, but Doran directs a talented cast and the pace is varied, albeit balanced on a knife-edge. There is just enough time for Antony Sher to pause and tease every nuance from the title role. Just enough space for Harriet Walter to gorge on evil and shatter into crazy fragments as his wife. And just two scenes in brilliant light to finally pierce the gloom of night.

The tragedy of "Macbeth" is four centuries old, but describing this as a modern dress version is misleading. True, Macbeth and Banquo make a powerful entrance as battle-scarred soldiers in berets and boots. But there is no attempt to tie the play to contemporary events, and the result is a clear focus on its timeless themes. The time is both now and always. The dimension is a living nightmare where to think of murder is to find a dagger in one's hand, dripping with blood that will never wash away.

The staging is minimal. In dull productions, this can be tedious, but here simplicity is a bonus. One scene flows effortlessly into the next and we get all the poetry and passion, without distracting props. Adrian Lee's percussive music fills out the atmosphere without bashing us over the head and telling us how to feel. When the phantom dagger appears before Macbeth, a Hitchcock-like zing slices through the air. When Macbeth is alone in his castle preparing for the final conflict, a soft and steady drumbeat echoes his tension, as effective as a hushed moment in the kabuki theater. Antony Sher as Macbeth has the brisk physical confidence of a man of action plus the intelligence to convey the "scorpions" stinging his mind. Macbeth's fate is sealed by his restless imagination as much as his "vaulting ambition," and both flashes of remorse and growing paranoia are equally convincing.

Unfortunately, once the witches join their disembodied voices on stage they look all too earth-bound. The endless circling and shushing around Banquo and Macbeth is distracting, and one can easily accept the theory that Shakespeare did not write these particular lines.

More chilling by far is Harriet Walter's Lady Macbeth. Before Duncan's murder, her lonely invocation to the night is thrilling. "Come, you spirits, that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe, top-full of direst cruelty" has the power of conviction, as if she is truly drawing evil spirits to her darkening soul.

Would such a strong woman kill herself? This Lady Macbeth shows hairline cracks from the start. When her husband tries to cancel the murder plot her voice splinters in rage. Only when Macbeth folds her into his arms, and agrees to proceed, is she calmed like a child.

The pairing of Sher and Walter works well: Intimate and intense, they exchange the lightning flashes of intuition that pass between married couples. The scene immediately after Duncan's murder is crackling with tension, as Macbeth's horror-stricken conscience threatens to give the game away. She tries to calm him in a no-nonsense whisper but her sudden shriek of "Why did you bring these daggers from the place?" is the authentic voice of terror.

Her growing isolation is palpable. There are so few words in the sleepwalking scene, yet she creates the extraordinary presence of one rapt in delusion. Throughout the production the lighting is excellent. Here, there is one candle for the Doctor and watching Gentlewoman, another for Lady Macbeth. The rest is darkness.

We could easily loathe Macbeth, but for the tragedy to succeed the play must catch us up against our will to identify with him. Undoubtedly, the playwright has the power to do this. But actors are Shakespeare's intermediaries and every night the production must cast its spell anew.

Sher's Macbeth engages our sympathy by drawing us into his world. When he steps forward to address the audience, we want to hear his thoughts. And when he takes us into the secret chambers of his mind, we see the opening of each new fear, and hear each fatal step toward damnation.

The play is packed with lines that are more than famous ("Is this a dagger which I see before me?" "Out, out brief candle" and so on). But Sher casts aside the burden of over-familiarity and gives us the words afresh, as if they had just sprung into thought.

His bitter reflections on life "It is a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury/Signifying nothing," are tossed off from the stalls with a brief wave of the hand. Just one of many fine moments in a memorable production, propelled by its own force of destiny.