Aside from its glorious speeches about life, death and the essence of man, its subtexts of sex and madness, and its deeply drawn characters, William Shakespeare's "Hamlet" is, at its very heart, a ghost story. And in Lamb's Players Theatre's entertaining new production of this classic tragedy, the creepier elements of the play are thoroughly explored.

Heavy smoke and fog effects, dark lighting, a prisonlike set, a disembodied ghost on video, fleeting spirits, and spine-tingling live music create an eerie atmosphere for the production, which stars intense actor Nick Cordileone as the young prince Hamlet.

Directed by Lamb's producing artistic director Robert Smyth (who also plays the ghost and head of the traveling Players troupe), this timeless version of "Hamlet" has a streamlined script that focuses almost completely on the main plot of Hamlet's revenge for the murder of his father, King Hamlet.

Trimmed away are minor characters like Fortinbras, ambassadors and courtiers. The ghost's visit to Gertrude's bedroom is gone, and dialogue involving Horatio, the Players, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and other secondary characters has been condensed. The effect is a tightly paced, three-hour production that moves along exceptionally well, while still maintaining all of the memorable language that makes the play great.

As Hamlet, Cordileone is wiry, brooding, intense, angry and tightly coiled. He's less wimpy and indecisive than often seen, and he's visibly seething with resentment for his mother, Gertrude -- who just weeks after King Hamlet's mysterious death has married the king's scheming brother, Claudius. David Cochran Heath and Deborah Gilmour Smyth bring a sexually charged dimension to the newlywed pair of Claudius and Gertrude. But soon enough the depth of their misdeeds begins to show in their shaking, nervous body language.

Tom Stephenson nearly steals the show as the babbling court adviser, Polonius. Stephenson holds back from playing the lapdog father figure as a clownish fool. Instead, he's sweet, though blustering, and affectionate to his children, Laertes and Ophelia.

Walter Murray brings naturalism to Hamlet's only confidante, Horatio. Ayla Yarkut is less vulnerable and depressive than usually seen as Hamlet's spurned lover, Ophelia. Greg Thompson brings a heroic thread to Laertes, who avenges his father's murder and sister's suicide in the final scene. And as the dishonest, smiling spies Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Dennis J. Scott and Jon Lorenz perform with twinlike precision.

Filling out the cast in smaller roles as players, courtiers, messengers, gravediggers, spirits and watchmen are Paul Eggington, Cynthia Gerber, Chrissy Reynolds-Vogele and Allan Heath.

Heightening the dreary setting of the play in seventh century Denmark, the bleak set design of Mike Buckley and Robert Smyth is well-accented by Nathan Peirson's near-black lighting design. Gilmour Smyth's chilling sound and music design uses pulse-pounding drums, haunting pipes and dissonant violin glissandos that raise goosebumps with each scrape of the bow.

Costumer Jeanne Reith bends time with a broad array of costumes that range in period style from Elizabethan, to Old West saloon hall, to 19th century London to American in the 1940s.

Although a little long for small children to enjoy, this "Hamlet" has none of the Oedipal undertones that would make sensitive viewers squirm in their seats. Its approach is traditional and true to the text. And the play ends with one of the most exciting fencing duels (choreographed by Martin Katz) that I've seen onstage.