CAPTURING DYLAN’S ‘TARANTULA’ FOR THE STAGE

Bob Dylan--playwright?

Well, not exactly. Some time in the early ‘60s, a publisher contacted the musician/composer and asked if he wrote anything besides songs. “Sure,” Dylan replied. “I write all kinds of (stuff).” A book deal was quickly arranged; the result is “Tarantula,” a rambling, evocative, extremely untraditional prose work. Now, 20-plus years and many drafts later, actor Darrell Larson has adapted the piece for the stage. It opens Friday, under his direction, at the Powerhouse.

“When it was first published, people were pretty much stumped by it,” said the Northern California-born Larson. “It was just too dense. But some people hung onto it--I being one of them. It was first handed to me in an underground version in 1968 in Santa Cruz, very late at night. I got some of it. Some of it moved me, made me laugh. But it was Bob Dylan . And I give Bob Dylan a big break, a lot of rope.”

Even to be incomprehensible?

“His purpose wasn’t to be comprehensible,” Larson, 37, defended. “It was to be rhythmic and imagistic. Other passages were just verbiage, images. And there is no consistency of characters. In fact, there are no characters at all, just different names. One guy is called All Petered Out. Another guy is called Snow Plow Floater. . . .

“Clearly he was under the influence of something. Another section is kind of (Arthur) Rimbaud/James Joyce on speed. Then there’s a letter. Those are pretty straightforward and easy to follow.”

In spite of his enthusiasm for the piece, Larson remained stumped for a stage solution. “Then I did a workshop with Lee Breuer, and he talked about working on mythical levels with your own personality--and using phrasing from popular music.” Larson promptly tackled Sam Shepard’s “Mad Dog Blues,” “which had some songs in it but was a straight play. I thought, ‘Why not sing it?’ Sam’s so rhythmic it could be done. So we sat around in a circle (at the Provisional Theatre) and composed the score to this ‘opera.’ ”

Suddenly, doing the Dylan book didn’t seem quite so impossible. But what was it really about ? Larson decided to start with the title.

“Tarantulas are terrifying--but they’re harmless. I realized this was all about fear: how it functions in our culture, in each of us. There’s a lot (supporting that) in the language. I ended up extracting about a third of the book--some rearranging, but I haven’t changed a question mark, a period or a comma. And I came up with a central character, the person whose experience we’re watching. It’s like we’re inside him, a dream where all the characters are aspects of him.

“Having to sit down and write it out made it clearer,” Larson noted. “Then moving to the rehearsal process and explaining it to the actors made it even clearer. It’s gotten to the point now where the language makes real sense to me. And the more context it’s put in, the more the code is broken for the audience. I’m underlining, saying, ‘Look at this. This horse means this. And when he says this, it’s because of this.’ ”

But is it what Dylan would’ve meant? “I feel like I collaborated with him,” the adapter/director said firmly. (Dylan has not been involved, but gave his agreement through representatives). “Not even just in spirit. Literally. I turned his raw material into a play. And it is a real play--not linear, but there’s a definite progression. A person comes to a different relationship to his own fear and his own death. And he’s different at the end of the play than at the beginning.”

Accompanying those spiritual travels will be original music--everything from be-bop to reggae (composed by the eight-member cast, most of whom have been with the project since its inception), and some equally original video images. Though it’s all coming together now, not long ago, the project was mired in red tape and was, at one point, a dead issue. “Doing this has pushed me beyond all the limits I had for perseverance,” he said unemotionally. Indeed, the early part of his career was met with incredible ease. At 18, studying at UCLA, he was spotted by a talent agent “and started getting hired at Universal--a lot. I had a certain amount of self-possession and I learned real fast. I’ve also been self-destructive, stood in my own way. I’ve had good years and bad years. But I’ve always worked.”

He reserves special affection for his role in “Mike’s Murder” (1984). “There was a lot of hype when we were making it: that I was going to be the next Montgomery Clift or James Dean,” he said wryly. “(The film’s failure) was painful, but I also learned a lot. Mostly that you can care about something deeply--but not have an ego identified with it, or count on the reception of your work for feelings of self-worth. That has to be gotten somewhere else. I have a great marriage, a great life, a fantastic kid. After all these years, I’m feeling legitimately good about myself.”

Not that he won’t be crushed if “Tarantula” doesn’t hit. “Of course, I want everyone to like it,” he said. “But that isn’t the reward. The reward is in doing the work.”

And honoring Dylan?

“If this had been written by Joe Schmo, I might not have given it as much attention as I have. But it’s more than that. The first time I did it in a workshop, I didn’t introduce it, I just went up there and recited ‘Justine’: ‘Let me say this about Justine. She was 5 foot 3 and had Hungarian eyes. It was her belief that if she could make it with Bo Diddley, she could get herself straight.’ People just went nuts; they loved it. And when I told them it was Dylan, they really went nuts. Because it’s actable Bob Dylan.”