When the house lights dimmed on Modesto Junior College’s production of “Frankenstein,” no time was wasted grabbing the audience’s attention. Victor Frankenstein’s voice boomed throughout the theater as the cast entered. Each had a lit candle, walking blank-faced from the back of the theater onto the stage, stopping before a gloomy graveyard.
The script stayed close to Mary Shelley’s original book, offering a different story than the “Frankenstein” many of us are familiar with. The creature was just a lonely man who wanted a companion, aware that the world he was thrown into would never accept him.
His request was simple: to have Frankenstein create a woman, just one more of his kind so he wouldn’t be alone. The creature’s desire for companionship and his sheer determination to get it was flawlessly portrayed by Marc Pratt.
There was  great chemistry between each member of the cast, especially  when it came to the couples. Metz (Ethan Hennes) and Schmidt (Taylor Williams) were a dynamic duo that fed off each other’s energy, and their money-hungry, menace-to-society attitudes stole my undivided attention and refused to give it back.
“The actors were really believable,” Aries Vidal, Sacramento State University alumnus said.
Saying the set was anything less than extravagant would be an understatement. The amount of hard work came through in the laboratory especially: The control panel on the scientist’s machine had coils that lit up; the operating table was raised and lowered when it was time to use the storm’s power; and Ethan Kachel’s amazing sound effects pulled me right into the action. It was as if Victor Frankenstein (Sean Trew) was yelling directly at me to pull the lever quickly before the storm passed.
“I was very impressed with the set especially,” Vidal said. “It was gorgeous, well put together [and] the crew was really organized.”
The amount of people shuffling to their seats before the show began wasn’t a full house, but by the time intermission ended the number of people in the audience had doubled, and it remained that way for the rest of the play. This didn’t surprise me at all; instead it confirmed that the combination of a well-written script with direction and performances to match can still draw in a crowd halfway through a show.
Following a costume contest at 9 p.m., a special Halloween performance of “Frankenstein” is being put on tonight at 10 p.m. But MJC is giving three more chances to come enjoy the show, Nov. 1 and 2 at 7:30 p.m. and Nov. 3 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $8 for students and $10 general admission.