It's amazing sometimes what the folks at Runaway Stage Productions can pull off -- and I'm not just talking about the shirts and pants of the guys in "The Full Monty," which opened this past weekend at the 24th Street Theatre. The small community theater troupe has mounted an energetic, ambitious and completely faithful production of this adult musical comedy.
The show has frank language, male stripping -- there are men in G-strings and, yes, full backside nudity -- and a lot more substance than you might expect from a story about a half-dozen unemployed steelworkers who decide to take off their clothes for money.
As in any production, there are performers with various levels of skill, but no one in this cast is poor, and its core group of six men (played by Scott Fera, Michael RJ Campbell, Tristan Rumery, Kyle Young, Stephen Russell and Craig Howard) is not just appealing but believable. They have normal builds. There isn't a buff bod among them. The band, the 12-piece RSP Orchestra, led by Christopher Cook, is tight and well-suited to the mostly upbeat, rockish score.
The disappointment -- and it was considerable on opening night last Friday -- was that technical failures threatened to sabotage all their good work. Early in the show, the spotlights failed to follow the performers, leaving them to sing in the dark or cross the stage with the light trailing behind. The sound throughout the evening crackled or was fuzzy. To their credit, no one on stage let on that anything was wrong.
"The Full Monty" is based on the 1997 British film of the same name. In 2000, it was made into a Broadway musical, the setting transferred from Sheffield, England, to Buffalo, N.Y. The production, with a book by Terrence McNally (Tony winner for "Ragtime," "Master Class" and "Kiss of the Spider Woman") and music and lyrics by Broadway newcomer David Yazbek, opened Oct. 26, 2000, and ran for a couple of years. It was nominated for 10 Tony Awards but won none.
The plot is pretty simple: Six unemployed guys, seeing how much Chippendale-style dancers earn in one night of stripping, decide to go them one better and bare it all (the English slang is giving them "the full monty"). The man who comes up with the idea, Jerry Lukowski (Fera), is behind in his child-support payments and desperately needs money or he'll lose joint custody of his son, Nathan (played by Tommy Weber). Jerry's overweight friend Dave (the instantly likable Campbell), who has been emasculated by his unemployment, is good to go. Their first recruit is security guard Malcolm (Rumery), whom they save from suicide. (Their song "Big-Ass Rock" is the funniest assisted- suicide song you'll ever hear.)
Tryouts round out the dance troupe that Nathan christens Hot Metal -- Ethan (Young), who can't sing and can't dance but is very well-endowed; Harold (Howard), a former plant manager who can dance; and Horse (Russell, unconvincingly aged in gray hair and makeup), an older guy who has some issues but still has some moves left. Crusty piano player Jeanette (delightfully delineated by Mary Young) appears out of nowhere to provide rehearsal music and sing the humorous "Jeanette's Showbiz Number."
As the men prepare for their big night, they work through their sensitivities about body image, physical endowment and masculinity. "Michael Jordan's Ball," which ends the first act, is a tightly timed and brilliantly choreographed (by Darryl Strohl) dance piece. Musical highlights include "Scrap," which describes how being unemployed saps one's self-worth; "Breeze Off the River," which is an eloquent expression of a father's love (and is delivered in a sweet tenor voice by Fera); and "You Rule My World," which is sung by one man to his stomach and by another to his wife.
Director Bob Baxter has a pretty good handle on the show, but he needs to trim the too-long funeral song and either beef up or lose an arrest scene that -- boom! -- is just there and gone. Otherwise, he knows exactly how to play this sexy, funny, often vulgar and heartwarming musical. Somewhat like the men whose story it tells, this production never gives up and ultimately delivers on its promise.
