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Hearken to the whispers of the children of the night. Heed their call of the wild.

Feel your heartbeat quicken as your eyelids grow drowsy, in the classic Bram Stoker saga of seduction and surrender, "Dracula," enacted through the nearly wordless drama of the Synetic Theatre production. The undead come to life on stage at the Rosslyn Spectrum in Arlington with a healthy amount of flash and ferocity. The play runs through Nov. 15.

Ravished innocence pulses through every Id-soaked Freudian moment, with the color scheme on stage all in rapturous red for the blood sacrifice and black for the doom of death, broken only by the color white for the virginity and virtue under repeated — and successful — assault by Count Dracula. The legendary vampire enlivens when he announces to the world his famous dietary restriction: "I never drink ... wine."

And as the howl of wolves waiting at the door fills the evening shadows, Dracula ominously echoes Bela Lugosi as Dracula in the film classic: "Listen, listen to the children of the night, what music they make."

Listen also to the hiss of his three brides who employ every erotic trick to possess the youthful and ultimately corruptible Jonathan Harker, brought brilliantly to the stage by Alex Mills, a Fredericksburg native who recently portrayed the mischievous Puck in the Synetic production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Because of the play's graphic and sexually suggestive nature, it is recommended for ages 16 and up, according to the theater's Web site.

Death and damnation haunt every pulse-pounding moment of this magical triumph of what Synetic's founder and "Dracula" director Paata Tsikurishvili calls "physical theater."

"It's a painting in motion," said Dan Istrate, who portrays the title role, to the audience in a post-performance talk-back Oct. 25 that "we really had to trust Paata" for his visionary conception of how to stage the production. Istrate is actually from Transylvania by birth and when he speaks on stage in Romanian it is his mother tongue.

From the beginning of the play, sword and sorcery, cross and conquest, clash on stage as the warrior Vlad Dracul dies in battle, stuck through with multiple blades, but is then reborn as a creature of the night, after the battle has raged and is thrust three-dimensionally into the audience.

From the electrifying opening to the repeated sudden eruptions of surging carnal desire, the play hurtles the audience through the familiar tale, culminating in an unfamiliar ending that differs from traditional versions.

Enter the Synetic's avant-garde yet accessible "Dracula" before the production closes Nov. 15.

Dracula

Playing through Nov. 15 at Rosslyn Spectrum

1611 N Kent St., Arlington

Tickets: Visit www.synetictheatre.org or call 800-494-8497.