Fang Shui Penobscot Theatre director rearranges ‘Dracula’ to achieve harmony between novel and performance

Earlier this week at a rehearsal at the Opera House in Bangor, a pale woman draped in a frilly white gown lay ill in her bed on stage. In a nearby window, the shadow of a figure rose, the glass frames opened and a tall man pulled her into an eerie embrace, her neck exposed and longing for his bite. Afterward, she fell back on the bed, drained.

Lifted from the pages of Bram Stoker’s classic tale, the scene is haunting and frightening, which is what Mark Torres, producing artistic director at Penobscot Theatre Company, wanted for the production of “Dracula” that opens the performance season Friday night.

When he decided to produce “Dracula,” Torres first went to the original gothic novel that the Irish Stoker wrote in 1897. The book is long and episodic, with Dracula’s habits and his journey to America recorded in the diary entries, reports and letters of others. Torres found it intriguing and dramatic.

He also read several stage adaptations of the story. But one by one he discarded the scripts because they did not adequately represent his sense of the story. Some of the scripts changed the names of characters. Others switched the gender of characters or left out scenes that Torres found crucial and memorable.

While in New York City earlier this year holding auditions for the season, Torres was approached by an agent outside the rehearsal room. The man had heard the vampire story was being staged in Maine. Would Torres be willing to consider a new adaptation? Torres agreed and began reading it on the train ride back to Maine. He instantly loved it. Several pages into the script, however, the rendition fell apart for the director.

With the season looming, what would he do?

Torres noticed a “ticklish thought” in the back of his mind.

“I thought the whole novel was worth trying to capture on stage,” he said. “I think it’s a very compelling story. But the adaptations were looking less and less like the novel. I am very interested in bringing literature to the stage and not just a good time. I don’t want to sugarcoat a work to make it more marketable. We have a mission to do the more noble work, to present literature. I decided to write it myself.”

Having written adaptations of “A Christmas Carol,” Torres Carol,” Torres knew he could compile the most important scenes in the book following Stoker’s own arc of suspense and plot. He began waking early in the morning to spend several hours highlighting scenes, collecting dramatic moments, recording dialogue.

The goal was to preserve the roaming nature of the novel and, at the same time, be faithful to Stoker’s period language and mysterious plot.

The opening scenes in Dracula’s castle in Transylvania stayed. But a scene in which the protagonist John Harker meets three women vampires in the night was cut. A scene in which Harker is shaving and notices that Dracula has no reflection in the mirror was also cut – on a technicality. How would Torres make an actor’s image disappear? Lucy’s encounters with Dracula? In. The psychiatric patient Renfield eating a spider? In. Dr. Van Helsing’s primer on vampires? In. A scene with ghostly assistants in the castle? Out.

Torres, who also contributed explanatory anecdotes, ended up with more than 50 scenes, far too many for one evening’s presentation.

The real challenge, Torres knew, would be to recreate the essence of the drama so that Dracula wouldn’t look like somebody’s ornately caped aunt, and that Mina, the leading female character, wouldn’t read like Buffy, the vampire slayer on TV.

“Actors are often anxious about going over the top,” said Torres. “But I don’t believe there is such a thing as ‘too big’ as much as there is something called ‘unsupportable.’ I told the actors they would have to go over the top. They need to be tired after this show, as if it were an athletic event.”

And indeed, the first day of rehearsal was. The six actors – four men, two women, most of whom are double cast in the 20-character lineup – took more than three hours just to read through the script. It was the first time Torres had heard his collected material read aloud. He began cutting scenes and lines immediately, a process that would continue through the final days of preparing the show.

Sitting in the rehearsal room of the Opera House last week, Torres said that being the writer reminded him of his days as a performer.

“It was a lot like acting,” he said of the intense mornings at his desk. “I was sitting in the dark in my little office at home, and I was really going into the novel. I mean, there was this feeling mentally that I would go to whatever place I was reading and writing about. That’s exactly what you do as an actor. It’s the same transference.”

At some point, Torres had to shift his professional focus to directing – even though he continued to tweak the script. He recalled working with the South African playwright Athol Fugard, who was developing a script while actors read it aloud.

“At one point, Fugard said: I need to stop being the writer and become the director,” said Torres. “I’ve thought a lot about that. He’s obviously a great writer. I’ve never seen his directing, but I assume he is also a great director. But those are two separate jobs. You have to stop doing one so you can do the other.”

Drac facts

What: ?Dracula?

When: Sept. 24-Oct. 3

Where: The Opera House, 131 Main St., Bangor

Tickets: $12-25

Contact: 942-3333