The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is probably best known as the 1948 film, directed by John Huston and starring Humphrey Bogart in a tale of three American expatriates in Mexico whose partnership to prospect for gold is threatened by one partner's greed.

B. Traven, the author of the book from which the film was adapted, was tremendously secretive. Following Traven's death in 1969, the author's estate, managed by his widow, maintained the mystery surrounding the writer.

So King found himself on a literal treasure hunt about 12 years ago, after the Stage Company had considered doing a series of plays adapted from literature, including The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. The series wasn't performed, but King was still intrigued by the idea of staging Treasure. He began a campaign of annual calls to the publisher Harper Collins in hopes of tracking down the Traven estate. After a few years, King was advised by the publishing house that not only did it receive a thousand requests every year regarding The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, but that Harper Collins itself did not have reliable contact with the Traven estate.

"'The chance of you getting permission on this really doesn't exist,'" King says he was told. "So that pulled the wind out of my sails entirely and I kind of just let it go."

However, King didn't know that a viable stage adaptation of Treasure already existed. "A few years later, a script fell in my lap," he says. "Literally, an actor walked in here and dropped it in my lap. And I looked at it and said 'There's no way. I'd love to do this, but there's no way we can get permission granted to do this project,' and he pointed to the cover title, and it said 'permission granted by Rosa Elena Lujan Traven'--Traven's widow--and my jaw dropped."

The author of that script, writer/actor Herb Robins, had searched out the original contract made between Traven and Warner Brothers when the movie studio bought the rights to make the film. Robins found a loophole: Traven, a former theater critic, had retained the rights to stage productions of his novel. With this, Robins had a foot in the door with the Traven estate and obtained the rights to stage an amateur production. When Robins teamed up with the San Jose Stage Company, further negotiations with the estate obtained the professional rights.

King says Robins' adaptation is faithful to the book and includes some elements of the work, such as historical background and religious themes that, largely for brevity's sake, were not explored in the film. "There were parts of the book that were left out of the screenplay. They just have to be to give the story its natural arc," says King. "The relationship arc of the story, you keep that, and a lot of the narrative aspects, you want to let them go."

King portrays the character of Fred C. Dobbs, the prospector overcome by gold fever. "He's kind of an Iago-esque character in terms of how he pours poison out. There's a lot of meat on the bones of the character for any actor to chew on. Dobbs' descent into madness is an interesting challenge; it's fun to play," says King.

"What I have to do as an actor, is I have to find the seeds of his humanity, so I'm not playing one note through the whole symphony," he says, pointing out that all three prospectors go through times of madness or greed.

The story behind the scenes of the play is almost the opposite of the play's plot, King says. "Unlike these guys up in the mountains who barely know each other, most of the people working on this project have been working together for 20 years."

The San Jose Stage Company presents "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" April 17­May 9 (previews April 14­16) at the Stage, 490 S. First St., San Jose. Tickets are $20­$42. For more information, call 408.283.7142.