COOS BAY - Victor Frankenstein had an out.

The consensus of the many versions of his story, beginning with Mary Shelley’s novel, is that the doctor could have handled things better.

Whether the mistake was an ethically questionable experiment or in how he treated his creature later, it is understood that once the wheels of tragic horror are set in motion, things are out of his control as they progress toward the inevitable bloodbath.

But the doctor actually had a chance to contain the damage, and it would not have required him to be a better scientist or a nicer person.

A little legal advice should have done the trick in “Frankenstein,” an On Broadway Thespians production opening tonight at the Egyptian Theatre in Coos Bay.

Friends and neighbors noticed a change in Victor (Tyler Schuldt) since he came back to Geneva from school in Ingolstadt, Germany, and built his basement laboratory, where he’s been holed up much of the time.

Concerned about her fiancé’s workaholic tendencies, Elizabeth (Gail Reynolds) invites one of his friends from school, Henry Clerval (Joe Vos), to check up on him. With better luck than Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had with Hamlet, Clerval quickly gets allowed into Victor’s lab and learns the nature of his research: Victor is in the final stages of an experiment to “reanimate” a corpse (Jeff Roberts).

Unlike a black magic ritual that might at least offer a misguided promise of a resurrection, the experiment seems intended to produce a zombie. Specifically, Victor is performing a brain and heart transplant on a fresh body — supplied by grave robbers Hans (Joshua Carter) and Peter (Christopher Seldon) — and following up with electroshock therapy.

Confronted with this news, Clerval asks Victor if he aspires to be a god. A few other questions might have been helpful: If not to bring back one of the three anatomical donors, what is the goal? And has he tested on animals? Because a clear history of reanimation of smaller, less complicated animals would be a lot harder for a mad scientist to fake than some dodgy philosophical question that he’s surely been anticipating. And there’s plenty of room for academic freedom in science without slipping into horror-movie territory.

Anyway, the experiment initially works, but within seconds, the creature’s pulse begins to fade. Instead of attempting CPR, Victor responds to the prospect of failure by asking Igor (Joe York) for more electricity. But that fails, and it’s only the intervention of the weather that brings the monster to life.

After failing to take control of the creature in his laboratory, Victor again demonstrates the lack of judgment that made his name famous by releasing him into the community. The monster has some unpleasant but nonviolent encounters with local villagers before finding DeLacey (Gordon Freid), an old blind man who takes him in and educates him.

But when a run-in with Hans and Peter results in the death of the only friend he’s ever known, the monster responds by killing them and trying to make it once again on his own.

“If society had treated him differently, I don’t think he would have been a killer,” said director Leatha Lewison-Gonzalez. “It’s all that happens that turns him.”

Meeting another friend might still put him on the path to becoming socially responsible, but the potential of the next candidate — William Frankenstein (Steven Daiy), Victor’s 7-year-old brother — is cut short when the monster accidentally kills him, and his little dog, too.

Feeling bad about the incident, the monster returns William’s locket to his sleeping nanny, Justine (McKenna Spencer, Pamela Unfried) and goes to seek Victor, whom Hans and Peter have said can explain things.

Luckily, he reaches Victor in time to confess the details of the killing before constable Lionel Mueller (Nolan Hofferber) announces Justine’s arrest. With only a third of the cast already dead, it’s here that Victor makes the big blunder that seals the fate of everyone else, including his friend, his fiancée and his father (Ben Carter).

Victor could reveal the real killer hiding in the closet and send him away, counting on a jury of those villagers being not too interested in the root causes of the monster’s evil. Instead, he agrees to help the creature he’s shown no interest in by setting to work on another experiment.

Like that will turn out well.

The cast also includes Elizabeth Spona and Julianna Seldon.

The show runs through Oct. 21, with performances at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and at 2 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $10, $7 for children and $8 for matinees.