If you notice a couple of ensemble players who look like giants among the cast of the University of Michigan’s new production of “Macbeth,” that’s probably because you’re seeing two football players — offensive lineman David Moosman and backup quarterback David Cone — performing in a space that doesn’t seat 100,000 people.

“It strains the budget to put (costumes) on them,” said director Philip Kerr with a laugh.

Yet perhaps the presence of these two large men will help ward off calamity for the production, since longstanding superstitions surrounding the play prevent many actors from even uttering the name “Macbeth” within a theater. The origins of such traditions are cloudy, with several theories and anecdotes bolstering the anxiety about the play. But aside from cast members struggling with the flu, U-M’s production has stayed on course.

“The play has developed a sense of omen and bad luck in production,” said Kerr. “Part of this may be attributed to the fact that it’s a role that everyone wants to play, but no one has really made a reputation playing it. He’s a complicated character, but there’s very little room to give him the heroic stature in the play ... to live up to the picture that’s painted of him in the third person when the play starts. He comes onto the stage and has one line before he sees witches, and then he’s essentially gone.”

The play, of course, tells the story of a Scottish general who, emboldened by his ambitious wife, seizes power by regicide, but then finds himself trapped in a spiraling nightmare of violence and anxiety.

“Obviously, being Shakespeare, it’s a play of superb language, but it’s a work almost written in image and metaphor, and the title character really speaks and thinks in image,” said Kerr. “And so I think it isn’t just about witches and magic and all that. It’s about an imagination, because after all, essentially what the author was trying to do is (present) the psychological interior of a man with an imagination and a conscience.”

U-M’s production is set in a church that’s been temporarily converted into a combat hospital in the early 20th century.

“The recurring images and words in the play that are repeated and emphasized are ‘blood,’ ‘disease,’ ‘medicine,’ ‘doctor,’ ‘madness,’ ‘sleep,’ and ‘light,’” said Kerr. “And so, the setting and tone of what we’re emphasizing with this production is really the health of the characters. It’s a play set in a war environment, so the wounds are both physical, with references to blood and death, and they’re psychological. They’re of the conscience and the imagination.”

Kerr, who’s previously played the lead role, and performed in “Macbeth” productions on Broadway and at the Kennedy Center, is relishing his first experience directing the material.

“It’s probably (Shakespeare’s) shortest tragedy, and it has a direct, steam roller of a tempo,” Kerr said. “There are no subplots. It just starts high and gets higher.”

And given the complexities of our modern-day wars, Kerr finds “Macbeth”’s themes to be timeless and important.

“Even something as horrendous as ... the massacre at Fort Hood; that’s kind of a result of a war, and once you throw the rock of war into the pond, the ripples go further than you think,” Kerr said. “And that’s what happens in ‘Macbeth.’ Because of the ambitious grasp of central character, his whole country becomes diseased, and the play is an effort for him to try and cure his own interior, and for the country to cure the disease which he’s created.”

Jenn McKee is the entertainment digital journalist for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at jennmckee@annarbor.com or 734-623-2546, and follow her on Twitter @jennmckee.

PREVIEW “Macbeth” Who: University of Michigan theater and drama department. What: Shakespeare’s tragedy about a Scottish general who contemplates regicide but doesn’t act until his ambitious wife prods him to do so, leading the couple into a nightmare of their own making. Where: Power Center, 121 Fletcher St. When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, December 10-13 only. How much: $18-$24. Info: 734-764-2538 or U-M productions ticketing web site.