Even though the wooden set is just a shell of what it's supposed to be, there's no mistaking that this — this dual-level structure of unfinished planks and 2-by-4s — is Dr. Frank N. Furter's famed castle. The two guys making out on stage left totally give it away.

A cast of men and women, not dressed for their parts (except for the high, high heels on the feet of everyone, even on the guy in the camouflage cargo shorts, who, by the way, rocks a patent leather pump), sings its guts out, reads its lines and hams it up for an audience that's not there.

At 9 on a Friday night, Manoa Valley Theatre is dark and empty except for the hard-working cast and crew of "The Rocky Horror Show," which opens Wednesday.

Director Jerry Tracy, on loan from the Aloha Performing Arts Company on the Big Island, where he's the artistic director, yells over the impressively loud voices of the singing actors, giving direction and sometimes scolding them.

"That can't happen! That can't happen!" he says when he sees something he doesn't like. He laughs — cracks up, actually — when he hears something he likes, as if he's never heard it before. And he's heard it all before.

This is his third time directing "The Rocky Horror Show," but every cast puts its own spin on the modern classic and this particular cast seems to have really captured the essence of the campy cult favorite. Everyone's working overtime (literally) to pull this off, and as the first community theater troupe to stage the production in Honolulu, there's a lot riding on the cross-dressing shoulders of all involved.

"The stakes are high for this particular production," Tracy said. "MVT is counting on this show to do well."

And if the success of a play could be based purely on the success of its rehearsals, it wouldn't be too presumptuous to say that MVT has a hit on its hands.

The play, which first opened in London in 1973 and then on Broadway in 1975, didn't reach its full pop culture potential until it was adapted for the big screen later in 1975. When the film opened, audiences at first failed to see its charm as a spoofy take on the classic horror and sci-fi film genres, but as time went on, the film garnered a super-dedicated cult following and is now the longest-running theatrical release in film history — 30 years after its initial release, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" is still being shown in theaters worldwide.

The story follows a young, newly engaged couple through a night of misadventure that starts when they stumble upon a gothic castle — misplaced in Anytown, America, but the naive pair never question that — in search of a telephone from which to make an SOS call about their car whose flat tire has stranded them far, far away from anything familiar.

Enter the freak show.

From the moment the couple enter the castle, owned by one very queer (or not, or maybe he's somewhere in between) scientist called Frank N. Furter, it's all spooky, raunchy debauchery until ... well, that would be telling.

All anyone really needs to know is this: Actor Tony Young makes a fabulous bisexual — or is it transsexual? — mad scientist with a thing, as it were, for women's lingerie. The star of "The Rocky Horror Show" is Frank N. Furter, and the star of this show is Young.

Even when he's dressed the part from only the waist down in board shorts, a T-shirt and red thigh-high boots with 6-inch platform heels, he's every bit the sweet transvestite. Imagine the effect in full David Bowie makeup, panties and a corset and that signature curly 'do that now seems a tad John Travolta circa "Welcome Back, Kotter," but without which our beloved Frank N. Furter wouldn't be quite as beloved.

Young has the character down to a mad science, but he almost didn't. That is, he never intended to play such a large character on such a small stage and his doing so is breaking a promise he made to himself years ago.

Promises, schromises.

"I've stayed away from Manoa Valley Theater because of the intimacy of the venue," said Young, whose local stage experience includes roles in "La Cage aux Folles" and "Cats!," among others. "And now I'm doing it in no clothes! But you know what? You don't grow if you don't stretch. I was always afraid that if I performed on a stage where I could see the audience, I would become me. But Frank is so different from me, that there's no danger of becoming myself while I'm Frank. I'm enjoying the intimate setting 100 times more than I thought I would."

And hopefully, the small audience will return the sentiment. The longevity of the production's success is due in part to audiences' tendency to break the conventional rule of keeping quiet while someone else has the spotlight.

"Rocky Horror" fans started the tradition of talking back to the actors and participating in the show by showing up in costume and using props to play along shortly after the movie premiered. The interactive tradition has become a vital part of every production since then, and the actors have come to rely on the audience's energy to help make their performances especially fun and campy.

Tracy and Young said they're a little worried the audience at MVT won't be as prone to the usual "Rocky Horror" rowdiness, but Melina Lillios, the show's music director, while also unsure of what to expect from the audience, said she's telling herself not to expect anything at all.

"I tell them to go out there expecting nothing. We'll bring enough energy for us and the audience," Lillios said. "If we go out there expecting to work off of the audience's energy and the crowd is quiet, then it won't be any fun. But if we go out there and give it all we've got and the crowd joins in, great!"

Lillios, who's the go-to music director for just about every major stage production in Honolulu, is arguably the most essential part of this show. Because more than anything else, "The Rocky Horror Show" is a rock opera. It's not scary enough to be classified as horror, it's not clever enough to be sci fi and it's not refined enough to be drama, but it is musically sound enough to be a solid — and wacky — rock 'n' roll concertlike show.

Lillios, without an official score for the stage production (one was never released), re-created the score by listening to the original music and transcribing what she heard until she had successfully scored the whole production. She then formed an original rock band made up of five musicians that she found by posting a Craigslist ad. The result is a classic musical with all the elements of an original score.

"The audience will find that the band is a character in itself," Lillios said. "I hope this doesn't sound immodest, but the band really rocks!"

And if you've got it, rock it.