THEATER REVIEWS / ‘DRACULA’ : A Monster Musical : Moorpark Melodrama’s latest show is like “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein,” without Abbott or Costello.

We all know the premise, if only from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”: A young couple’s car breaks down in a rainstorm and their only refuge is a dark, mysterious house full of the kind of folk we’d just as soon not run into on a dark and stormy night.

Well, here it comes again, in “Dracula . . . Sorry the Bridge is Out, You’ll Have to Spend the Night,” the latest production of the Magnificent Moorpark Melodrama & Vaudeville Company.

The setting is rural Ohio. The preppy protagonists are John Wellgood and Mary Helen Merriman. The house (a medieval castle) is inhabited by what seems to be a convention of Universal-International Pictures’ monsters of the ‘30s and ‘40s and those near and dear to them: Dr. Frankenstein and his Monster; Dracula and his lovely Mrs.; the Wolf Man and his Gypsy mother; and the Mummy and his (her, actually) human companion, Dr. Abdul Nassar.

This could be “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein” without either Abbott or Costello. Instead there are the Draculettes, a trio of ebony-tressed Elvira look-alikes--Caryn Faye, Kellie Holzer and Colleen Ogilvie--who could be the “Uh-huh!” Diet Pepsi girls of bloodsucking.

Each monster wants John or Mary Helen for his or her own purposes, none of which include a long and fruitful life for the young couple. Family-oriented high jinks ensue, together with a number of original songs by playwrights Sheldon Allman, Bob Pickett and Duke Stroud, all delivered with typical Moorpark Melodrama panache and directed by Moorpark High School drama instructor (and Melodrama regular) Steve Robertson.

Moorpark Melodrama productions are nothing if not dependable, and “Dracula” is well within the company’s tradition.

Choreographer Pam Rossi works miracles in keeping the large cast more or less in step, and if the show has a single high point, it’s probably the dance routine with the Monster (Richard Zemaites) and Mummy (Pauline Belleville). Several other actors also contribute particularly notable characterizations--none more so than Gary Schaffner and Lonnie Robbins as the creepy lab assistants Igor and Renfield, who also host the show.

Director Robertson keeps the creatures dashing around producer Linda Bredemann’s set, which is ambitiously designed even by Moorpark Melodrama standards.

Kevin McCurley and Laura Walker play John and Mary; Richard Rosenberger is Dr. Frankenstein; Gerald VanDiver and Jana Kovalivker are the Draculas; Martin Spizman is seen as Nassar (an Egyptian, evidently, who speaks with an East Indian accent); and Charles Belgard and Gaelon Swift are a couple of grave robbers.

Keyboardist Tim King and bassist Art Gibson supply the live musical accompaniment.

* WHERE AND WHEN

“Dracula . . . Sorry the Bridge is Out, You’ll Have to Spend the Night” continues Thursdays through Sundays through Sept. 19 at the Magnificent Moorpark Melodrama & Vaudeville Company, 45 E. High St., Moorpark. Shows are 7 p.m. on Thursdays and Sundays, 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, with Saturday matinees at 3 p.m. There will be a matinee on Sept. 6, at 2 p.m. General admission is $12 for all performances, and $9.50 for children and seniors on Thursday and Sunday nights and for Saturday matinees only. Group rates are also available for every performance except those on Saturday nights. For reservations or further information, call 529-1212 between noon and 5 p.m.