With Halloween on the horizon, what could be more appropriate for Center Stage at the Southampton Arts Center to present than “Bram Stoker’s Dracula: A Radio Play,” which will have a two-week run starting tomorrow. Michael Disher, who has led Center Stage since 2007, directs.
Mr. Disher, who has never staged “Dracula” before, turned to the adaptation by Philip Grecian, the author of many staged and televised radio scripts, among them “Frankenstein,” “Call of the Mummy,” and “Twisted Tales of Poe.” “His adaptation is largely faithful to Bram Stoker’s novel,” said Mr. Disher. “All of the characters are there, all of your ‘Dracula’ favorites, from Lucy to Dr. Van Helsing to, of course, our fly-eating friend, Renfield.”
The director spent the summer months reading through the monumental novel, which Stoker, an Irishman, wrote in 1897. “It is quite the read. I wouldn’t say it’s light summer reading, but it is fascinating.”
“I realized that ‘Dracula’ is a quite wonderful mystery,” he continued, “and, beginning to understand that, I started my own investigative work. It turns out that according to the Guinness Book of World Records, Dracula has appeared in more films and television shows than any other fictional character, surpassing Sherlock Holmes. I guess the old Count has been around.”
The 1931 film starring Bela Lugosi is perhaps the best known adaptation, though a Spanish version starring Carlos Villarias as the Count was made the same year and released in Cuba. Actually, the first film adaptation was made in Hungary in 1921, but very little of it survives. The following year, F.W. Murnau’s German Expressionist film “Nosferatu” opened to positive reviews and is now regarded a silent-film masterpiece.Mr. Disher is drawn to Gothic literature. “The older I get, the more I’m embracing the classics and re-reading classic literature. Perhaps it’s the combination of the writing, the stories, and the characters, for all seem to resonate more strongly than ever with me.”
“I’m always intrigued by the thirst for power and control over others,” he said of “Dracula.” “What drives this, and what allows one’s weakness to succumb to another, is a great mystery to me. What exactly contributes to this powerful equation can be debated on so many levels. It is a primal conflict within most men and most fiction.”
Another reason for its appeal, he said, was that while searching for local productions of the novel, he could find nothing. “Curious to think the most ubiquitous fictional character has somehow avoided local stages — until now.”
While Mr. Disher has directed a number of radio plays over the years, he has never heard of one of “Dracula.” The stage will be set up like a radio studio. As a melodrama, he said, it does lend itself to all of the bells and whistles when it comes to the things that make us afraid. There will be music, a sound effects table that can generate fog or haze or lighting, “and the actors can grab a costume or prop or a cape or fangs. And yes, there will be blood.”
In addition to Tim Ferris, who will play Count Dracula, the cast includes Daniel Becker, Richard Adler, Mary Sabo, Franco Pistritto, Elizabeth Wyld, Michaal Lyn Schepps, Kyle Paseka, Michael Ponella, and Taylor Tybaert. Stage management is by Joey Giovingo, lighting and sound by Kenneth Blessing.
The production, presented through special arrangement with Dramatic Publishing, is sponsored in part by Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. Performances will take place Fridays and Saturdays at 7 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through Oct. 26. Tickets are $25, $20 for arts center members.
