Mr. van Hove based the show on Bergman’s original six-hour mini-series, which aired on Swedish television in 1973, starring Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson. (American audiences are more familiar with a three-hour film version released stateside the same year.) Three pairs of actors play Johan and Marianne at three stages in life, roughly their mid-20s, mid-30s and late 40s. They wear costumes and street clothes and set up their own props in front of the audience.

Mr. van Hove said Bergman’s quest for an intimate understanding of his characters inspired his version.

“To make this text really work, the actors need to be very close to each other,” Mr. van Hove said after a recent rehearsal. “But I also wanted the audience to be very near to that intimate atmosphere so that, hopefully, by the end of the show, we all share the same intimacy and the same problems, the same conflicts, emotions, defeats, failures, vulnerability, tenderness and violence.”

Here is a detailed look at how the theater has been transformed over the past few weeks, and what audience members can expect when they get there.

BUILDING UP

Not including the dressing rooms, the theater is 3,300 square feet. Seating is arranged in a modest rake, ending with a stage that is normally three feet below street level. But to make use of the entire theater space for this production, crew members removed the fixed seats and created a new floor out of large interlocking steel platforms, essentially making the playing stage level with the street.

“The house has been lifted,” Mr. Versweyveld said. “The rest stays.”