‘Macbeth’ to be ‘horror thriller’

Raymond Teller, the silent half of the Penn & Teller magic team, is fulfilling a long-held dream of staging Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” the way he believes it should be: as a “supernatural horror thriller.” He’s working with the Two River Theater Company in Red Bank, N.J., for an early 2008 premiere.

The play is “dark and creepy and full of murders and supernatural events. It’s just great. The suspense just makes your hair rise when they’re murdering the king,” Teller said with infectious delight.

He vows tricks “that would do fine credit to any professional magic show, but they’re in the context of this terrifying play, so I think they should blow people’s heads off.” Examples include vanishing daggers and hands that are blood-soaked one moment, clean the next.