No critics have had a crack at Frankenstein because it’s still just a pre-Broadway production. Mullally, here playing Elizabeth, the monster’s fiancée, does get the crowd excited, as do a couple of big dance numbers. They hollered after “Join the Family Business,” where the ghosts of Dr. Frankenstein’s ancestors whirl in little cyclones of lab coats and antique beards. But the people aren’t here to see a new musical — they’ve come for a dazzling rehash of the movie. They go bonkers for their favorite old jokes while barely chuckling at the few new ones (this being Seattle, they laugh obligingly at a punch line involving a complicated espresso drink).

By the end of the three-hour spectacle, the audience begins to lose patience. Children squirm. Adults start to yawn. The curtain call is mercifully short. "Um, yeah, it's good," a woman in a black-sequined top says into her cell phone as the crowd surges toward the doors. "But, you know — it's definitely pre-Broadway." — Brendan Kiley