No Oakland Theater Project show is filler — some sleek, ready-to-wear new play out of New York that countless other outfits could produce just as well. This 10-year-old company seems to reinvent itself with each project it mounts. Often, the result feels like religious service or ritual — theater on hallowed ground.

That quality makes the company ever worthy of attention, even when individual shows don’t quite hit the mark.

Walking into its production of “The Tempest,” which opened Friday, Feb. 25, at a converted garage attached to Oakland’s Flax Store, might inspire an involuntary hush. Karla Hargrave’s set design for Shakespeare’s island-set play makes the whole venue feel like an aquarium or a ship in a bottle, with a mirrored floor reflecting aquamarine walls.

Throughout the show, Stephanie Anne Johnson’s lighting design frequently seems to plunge the proceedings underwater, highlighting the murky, deep origins of the characters’ vengeful fantasies.

Before the play itself starts, ensemble members drift, twitch and lurch about the stage, as somnambulists under the spell of Prospero (Adrian Roberts), the erstwhile Duke of Milan overthrown 12 years ago by his scheming brother Antonio (Abril Centurión) and cast with daughter Miranda (also Centurión) to sea. They landed on a desert island populated by magical spirits whom Prospero, with his wizardly abilities, can make his servants — slaves, even. But now, with Antonio and other Milanese sailing nearby, Prospero is poised to retake what’s rightfully his, thanks to a ship-wrecking sea storm he summons.

Director Michael Socrates Moran makes a slew of illuminating choices. One spirit, the shapeshifting Ariel, is played by three performers at once (Sharon Shao, Romeo Channer and Carla Gallardo), as if one form and one point on stage cannot contain the being. To show how the Milanese have just washed ashore from their shipwreck, the trio of Ariels pour just a dash of water on them from little bottles. To show just how ridiculously loyal the elderly minion Gonzalo (Kevin Rebultan) is to Milanese king Alonso (Benôit Monin), the former starts massaging the latter, throwing in both a chopping motion and a butt caress.

But if individual choices intrigue and inspire, together they’re more a motley assortment than pieces of a whole, often seeming to spring from little more motivation than “because the director said so” or “because it looked cool.”

Equally stifling is Roberts’ armor-stiff hardness as Prospero. He plays the wronged duke with unvarying hauteur, as if Prospero’s omniscience as sorcerer makes the actor playing him decide all his choices in advance, instead of in the moment as the story unfolds.

Many other ensemble members fare much better, especially Centurión’s openhearted but crisply focused Miranda, who seems to translate antiquated language about love at first sight or father-daughter travails into contemporary speech.

Nathaniel Andalis seems to channel the clown Trinculo straight out of “The Big Lebowski” or “Dude, Where’s My Car?” The clowns’ costumes, by Regina Evans, wittily underline this characterization: They wear their blazers inside out.

And as Miranda’s lover Ferdinand, Rebultan has a riotous scene practicing lovemaking on a stick, perfectly capturing a quality that animates so much of Shakespeare’s comedy: just how embarrassingly foolish and self-important we humans are when we think no one’s looking.

Then, when Rebultan morphs into the geezer Gonzalo, the physical transformation is no less startling for how little Rebultan showboats with it. It’s as if his cheeks have sunk into jowls and his teeth have melted into gums.

“The Tempest” is a series of overlapping power struggles. Who rules the island? The sea? Milan? The clowns? Miranda’s affection? That means it’s also about surrender, both forced and willful, most notably when Prospero gives up his magical powers at the play’s conclusion. But here those power clashes barely land with a blip. They are the rote recitation of book report, not desperate dispatches from the human heart.

L“The Tempest”:Written by William Shakespeare. Directed by Michael Socrates Moran. Though March 13. One hour, 40 minutes. $10-$52. Flax Art & Design, 1501 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland.510-646-1126.oaklandtheaterproject.org