Dracula Reimagined: A Radio Play With Teeth Comes to SAC

This week, Center Stage at Southampton Arts Center opens its first production of the new theater season. And this is one show that audiences can really sink their teeth into — “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” which runs on the SAC stage from October 17 through October 26.

As a literary work, “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” has been scaring audiences for more than 125 years. Modern reboots of the Gothic story in literature and film include Stephen King’s “Salem’s Lot;” “The Strain Trilogy” by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan; Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” saga and “Van Helsing,” the 2004 film starring Hugh Jackman as the famed vampire hunter. Meanwhile, TV series like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “True Blood” delved into the blood-sucking genre with unique twists of their own. And just last week, Southampton Playhouse screened the 1922 silent film “Nosferatu” with live band accompaniment as part of the Hamptons International Film Festival.

But curiously, as he was researching the history of Dracula, Center Stage’s founder and director Michael Disher discovered that the tale has rarely made it onto the stage, save for a 1977 Broadway production starring starred Frank Langella (who went on to play the title role in a 1979 film version directed by John Badham). After reading the novel, Disher suspects he knows why.

“The book is very dense. It takes a lot of time to get through. It is weighty, detailed, riveting,” he said, “and it has the lamest ending of almost any book ever. But it’s fascinating up to that point.

For Disher, bringing “Dracula” to the stage represents a first in his directing career — not just the story itself, but also the horror theme.

“I’ve never done a Halloween show,” Disher admitted.

But in many ways, the SAC version of “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” will look a lot like previous plays Disher has produced there, primarily because he is presenting the show as a radio broadcast, a format he finds works well with his casts and the theater.

“I always look for radio plays,” Disher confirmed. “Not that they’re easy to do, but sometimes they can be less taxing, production value-wise, even though this one isn’t.”

This time around, the script is not by Joe Landry, a playwright specializing in the radio play format who is a frequent collaborator of Disher’s, but rather a different playwright.

“Joe had nothing to do with this one,” Disher said. “Philip Grecian wrote this script based on his stage play ‘Dracula.’ People wrote to him and said, ‘It’s too advanced for us to do’ or ‘It’s too expensive. Can you adapt it to a radio show?’”

Grecian did just that and Disher found that it was just what he was looking for. He also notes that the material from Stoker’s original book has been reworked in this stage production to make for a better live theater experience.

“A lot is left out of the play version, and he jostles elements from the book,” Disher said. “The build-up in the book is so wonderful and then the last four pages are so anti-climactic. It’s chapter upon chapter of Mina Harker, who has been slightly bruised by the vampire, so to speak, because Van Helsing put her under hypnosis to trace where he is. After discovering the 14 other crypts of dirt he has placed so he can move about, she gets them to Transylvania where they say, ‘Oh, here he is. Let’s drive a stake in his heart.’ That’s it.

“There’s not a lot of surprises in Dracula. You know what’s going to happen,” he said. “But I find the women so interesting in this book.”

Although this upcoming production will be presented as a radio show, audiences should still expect some eerie stage effects at SAC to help set the mood.

“Wind, rain and low-lying fog and haze — anything to attack the senses and further the fear,” said Disher. “Dan [Becker] has this opening monologue before he becomes Van Helsing. He says it’s all about fear and what we imagine in the dark. Is it real or not? Is it coming for us or not? It’s a nice little preface to the horror.”

By his own admission, Disher also said he is “bumping up the sexuality between Dracula and Renfield,” referring to the count’s deranged, insect-eating assistant.

“Renfield, played by Franco [Pistritto], asked, ‘Michael, was there something between them?’ I said, ‘Of course. Renfield’s in love with him,’” Disher recalled. “He said, ‘You think he is?’ I said, ‘I know he is.’ Dracula is not a nice man and he doesn’t have a heart, so he can’t know love. He says whatever he needs to in order to get what he wants. You call him your master. You’ll do anything for him.’”

The true story that Dracula is supposedly based on is that of Vlad the Impaler, a cruel and sadistic 15th-century prince who lived in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania and was rumored to have tortured his enemies in the most brutal ways imaginable, as his nickname implies. Disher admits that he didn’t learn very much about the real-life Vlad in his research for this show, though he did watch several documentaries that claimed the prince became known as Dracula after he sold his soul for the love of a woman who had died.

“He was cursed and doomed to be undead for the rest of his existence and live off the blood of others,” Disher said. “What I found to be the most interesting trivia fact, when you search ‘fictitious’ characters, the person who appears in more films and TV shows than any other is Dracula, followed by Sherlock Holmes.

“It’s been intriguing. Honestly, reading the book and doing the research is as rewarding as doing the show.”

When asked why he thinks the myth of Dracula has persisted through the ages, despite the flaws in the original novel’s plot structure, Disher responded, “Is it wrong to say people like to be scared? When Dane [DuPuis] and I were taking a series of photos for this show, we chose cast members because of their great necks. We’re taking liberties with it. Is he gonna have fangs in his mouth? Of course. It’s all about fear. Dracula is the poster boy for Halloween.

“It’s like spun yarns that grow through the telling,” he added. “The spoken word as you relay it that keeps furthering the story to another time. It keeps going on and on. You hope it will have the same impact as ghost stories by the campfire. These are the things we grow up with.

“You don’t want to hear it, but you can’t help it.”

The Center Stage production of “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” runs October 17 – 26 at Southampton Arts Center. Shows are Fridays and Saturdays at 7 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m. The cast includes Daniel Becker, Richard Adler, Mary Sabo, Franco Pistritto, Elizabeth Wyld, Michaal Lyn Schepps, Kyle Paseka, Michael Ponella, Taylor Tybaert and Tim Ferris as Count Dracula. Tickets for the play are $25 ($20 for SAC members) at southamptonartscenter.org. Southampton Arts Center is at 25 Jobs Lane in Southampton.