Give it this: Cincinnati Shakespeare Company's new production of Macbeth is a model of narrative clarity. Shakespeare's 1603 play about the murderously ambitious Scottish Thane of Cawdor and his bloody-handed wife rockets right along. It thrusts forward each plot twist with the certainty of a tabloid headline and delivers the script's full measure of ritual treachery in two hours, plus intermission. Apart from speed and clarity, a dozen excellent men's wigs designed by James Geier, Jennifer Johnson's spot-on soundscape and some nicely vicious swordplay choreographed by Gina Cerimele-Mechle, however, there's little to recommend it.

While this late, great tragedy has come down to us in mangled form, it still possesses some of Shakespeare's subtlest character-building and, in its latter half, some of his noblest poetry. There is no more complex Shakespearean character than Lady Macbeth and no more eloquent soliloquy than Macbeth's "My way of life has fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf."

But under Matt Johnson's blundering direction, the characters are chalk-on-the-sidewalk caricatures, and the lines are spluttered with the nuance and subtext of a Texas Chainsaw movie.

Three witches tell Macbeth his future, deluding him with equivocating half-truths. Spurred by their lies, he slaughters king and friends and seizes the throne -- along with a bronze plastic crown so ludicrous it drew snickers from the audience.

As have other directors, Johnson has attempted to sensualize the witches (Corrine Mohlenhoff, Kelly Mengelkoch, Hayley Clark). Turning them into slithering, bare-navel Siamese triplets doesn't cut it. Having them hammer the floor with their fists as they chant only impedes comprehension.

Performances are less acted than declaimed at stump-speech volume, ranging in depth and coloration from little to none. Even the ablest of CSC's regulars -- Brian Phillips (Macbeth), Jeremy Dubin (Banquo), Jeff Sanders (MacDuff) and Rob Jansen (Malcolm) -- produce little more than bloodless rattle and rant. Guest artist Jennifer Joplin (Lady Macbeth) looks like a fugitive from a Nativity pageant and is no more varied, except for the sleepwalking scene, where loony-bin rants are OK.

Even dependable designer Will Turbyne has stumbled with a cartoonish, skull-littered set. Grade: C

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MACBETH, presented by Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, continues through Nov. 19.