On a visit to Armenia last summer, Edward Keith Baker, artistic director of Bristol Riverside Theatre, was impressed with what he saw on the stages of the western Asian nation.

"I came away more times than I have in this country shaking from the experience I had in the theater. As a human being and an artist, I found it satisfying," he said.

Baker, who visited Armenia as part of a State Department theater exchange program, wanted to share his satisfaction with his audience back in Bristol. Importing an entire company of actors would be far too costly, so Baker settled for the artistic director of what is regarded as Armenia's best theater. He would stage, with American actors, one of the plays that gave Baker the artistic shakes.

Forget Herostratus, which will open tomorrow at Bristol Riverside, will be directed by Armen Khandikian of the Yerevan Stage Drama Theater. Khandikian, 56, has headed the theater in Armenia's capital since 1986, but his experience with the play by Russian writer Grigory Gorin dates to 1976, when he added it to his theater's repertory.

In 356 B.C., Herostratus, a resident of the ancient city of Ephesus, set a fire that destroyed the huge Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. He burned down the temple to become famous, and - as he is being written about two millennia later - it appears he achieved his goal, even though Ephesus sought to erase Herostratus from history by prohibiting under pain of death the very utterance of his name.

In his dark comedy, Gorin expands on these few facts to depict a Herostratus who, through his destructive deed, took over a city. The play can be seen as a political parable: Herostratus used the temple arson as a springboard to power just as Hitler did after the 1933 fire he probably ordered set in the Reichstag.

Although Khandikian agrees that the play is a cautionary political tale, none of his several productions in the old Soviet Union - he presented it in Moscow and Bulgaria as well as Armenia - got him into trouble with the authorities of the dictatorial state.

But Khandikian, speaking through an interpreter, also said Soviet authorities seldom interfered with him, only occasionally asking that lines be eliminated or altered. "I've always done any performance that I liked," he said, but added with a sly smile: "I think sometimes they didn't disturb me so they would have an example of a director who wasn't being disturbed."

Baker, who is also an actor and takes the lead role of Herostratus, uses more contemporary political terms to describe the play. Herostratus, he said, "is essentially the original terrorist, but as Armen develops the play, you find yourself saying, 'Wait a minute! Who's the terrorist here?' because he awakens the dark forces and the people around him begin terrorizing each other. Even he is surprised at the results he gets."

Baker quickly added, "I don't want it to sound too serious. It all occurs within the context of a circus atmosphere in which anything can happen."

Although he has staged Forget Herostratus many times, Khandikian strives to keep his productions fresh. He estimated that "about 80 percent" of the Bristol version is newly imagined, and Baker confirmed that in terms of set, costumes, staging and music (in Armenia, even straight plays have musical accompaniment), the production here is notably different from the one he saw in Yerevan.

Baker said that one of Khandikian's gifts is the ability to express a script in physical behavior and theatrical activity. "The text reads a little dry, but it doesn't play that way at all. After what he has done with it, you feel like you're living it," Baker said.

Baker pointed out that Khandikian's rehearsal routines, which he insisted upon at Bristol, are quite different from those in American theaters. When actors gather at the first rehearsal of a play here, they typically do not know their lines. It takes them, according to Baker, about a week and a half to learn their parts, at which time a director can really begin to shape a production. Even then, rehearsals proceed without benefit of sets, lights or costumes, which are usually ready only a few days before the curtain goes up before an audience.

In Armenia, he said, actors arrive at the first rehearsal knowing their lines, and from the outset they rehearse on stage in costume with the sets, lighting and music in place. Interviewed during the second week of rehearsal, Baker said he liked what he called Khandikian's "hit-the-ground-running" approach: "You feel integrated with the production from the beginning, and you see where you fit."

He added that he and the rest of the cast members did not find it difficult to work with a director who speaks and understands almost no English. Baker praised the translator, but he said that Khandikian was able to make his intentions and approach so apparent that the actors frequently understood what he was saying before it was translated.

Asked if this was the first time he had directed actors who do not understand what he says, Khandikian impishly replied: "Yes, but for some reason I feel that has always been the case."

Khandikian also did not find the language difference to be a barrier. "We understand each other very quickly, often without words," he said, echoing Baker.

"I know the play well, and I'm pretty confident that emotions and feeling express themselves the same in all countries," he said. "They say theater has its own language. I'm becoming convinced that this is true."