THEATER REVIEW / ‘DRACULA’ : This Play Is a Holiday Treat of Humor, Horror : The stage version of Bram Stoker’s novel promises fun and romance for a pre-Halloween date.

For a scarifyin’ good time, “Dracula” still can’t be beat. Even though it closes a week before the holiday, local director Michael Jordan’s stage version--from his original script--is a better Halloween treat than candy corn or caramel-coated apples.

Jordan adapted Bram Stoker’s novel for the stage some years ago, and it’s since been produced in California and Nevada. The current version, at the Arts Council Center in Thousand Oaks, is funny, frightening and romantic; among other things, it’s a fine show for a date.

Michael Vila is featured as the elegant vampire, moving from his Transylvania castle to rural England in search of new blood. Stephen Zamora plays Jonathan Harker. Another kind of bloodsucker, he’s a lawyer and real estate agent helping the Count in his purchase of a former abbey, which is just down the street from a privately run insane asylum.

Suzanne Tobin is Harker’s fiancee, Mina Murray. Stephanie Lowe is her best friend, Lucy Westerna, who lives near the abbey, and before long, both the women have become involved in the story. So have the asylum’s chief, Dr. Seward (Bryan Moore), brash Texan Quincy Morris (Keith Cable) and the wealthy Arthur Holmwood (Larry Gund), all of whom are in competition for the eligible and desirable Lucy’s hand.

Then Dracula shows up . . .

Jordan’s imaginative staging takes place in two areas of the Cultural Arts Center: the main room (itself divided into several sections) and the patio outside; Sunday night’s audience was treated to a small amount of atmospheric rain during the graveyard and concluding scenes.

Both performance areas are ambitiously decorated by a crew under the direction of designer Jeff Garcia; the inside of the old Janss home is done up to resemble a room in a dank middle-European castle, and the patio includes a temporary installation of tombstones and iron fences.

Performances are generally adequate or better, with special note to Lowe’s Lucy, Vila’s smoothly spooky Dracula, and to Jim Diderrich as the animal-loving inmate, Renfield.

The show is long--three hours divided into numerous brief scenes--but the action and interest never flags. Teen-agers should enjoy “Dracula” tremendously, though youngsters should probably remain at home to contend with the monsters hiding under their beds.

Details

* WHAT: “Dracula”

* WHEN: Weekends through Oct. 24. Curtain is 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights; 7:00 on Sundays.

* WHERE: The Arts Council Center, 482 Greenmeadow Drive in Thousand Oaks.

* COST: Tickets for all performances are $8; $7 for senior citizens and students.

* FYI: Reservations are recommended, due to the small size--under 40 seats--of the theater. For reservations or further information, call 499-4355.