ISSUE 18 - THE FULL MONTY

The 1997 hit film, The Full Monty, about out of work Sheffield, England steelworkers who set about stripping to make some fast money, was successfully transformed into a musical in 2000. For the musical, the characters and story were transplanted to Buffalo, New York and gave greater importance to the film’s female roles.
Throughout the month of January the musical will be performed at City Stage in downtown Wilmington. Rehearsals have been going on in preparation for a New Year’s Eve performance in addition to the run in January.
Shortly before Christmas, rehearsals show the cast and crew bringing to shape a bawdy and entertaining show, one mixing songs not only carrying the story but lingering in your ear after the show has ended.
The music kicks in loud in the darkened theatre. A piano is set high above the stage and an up-tempo jazz score envelops the room. Chiaki Ito sits behind that piano and when a cue is missed director Justin Smith halts everything.
“I can’t hear them to make my cues,” she says. Smith says he’ll make the adjustment and things run smoothly thereafter.
A blonde actress in a cheetah print dress stands in the seating area with several other actresses. They hold drinks and talk loudly, behaving as women in a club might with the weight of alcohol on their breath. Smith has instructed the actresses to stay in character while they mingle in the seats, thus mixing up the show with the audience during performance. They carry on humorously as tipsy ladies out on the town, waiting to see a male strip show. It’s a girl’s night out and Kat Vernon belts out the words to ‘It’s a Woman’s World’ with bravado while wearing a black Motley Crue t-shirt.
“Back at home my libido is asleep/Nothing stirring up the batter/Now I know all I needed was a heap/O’ dancing beefcake on a platter” Vernon sings as the other women follow up with, “A silver platter!”
The actresses move up and down the stage, part club and restroom, as the two male leads, Jerry Lukowski and Dave Bukatinsky, played by Gray Hawkes and Anthony Lawson, hide in the stalls serving as bathrooms atop the stage. In the stalls they hear what Dave’s wife and Jerry’s ex-wife think of them.
The lights go out between scenes and stage hands move props and doors around to change the scenery. In one scene, half a car is moved from under the stage’s second level. Its rusted blue paint echoes the underlying theme of the story, of those down and out and struggling with their lives.
Hawkes runs lines alone as actress Barbara Weetman reads lines just off stage. Hawkes’ focus is tight, making his angst as Jerry all the more believable. For the song ‘Scrap’ he sings, “I want a job/I want to feel like a person instead of a slob.” Lawson joins in, singing, “And it’s a long night when you’re scrap.” When the number is done it’s hard not to clap, even though it’s a rehearsal.
Lawson is perfect for Dave, delivering his wise cracks and sarcasm dryly. He shines with the number ‘Big Ass Rock’ in which Dave and Jerry come upon fellow worker Malcolm trying to asphyxiate himself in the blue car. The song is dark humored in which the two offer Malcolm other ways to commit suicide. Lawson sings, “I got some quality rope/Made for a man who’s devoid of hope.” The lyrics recall an old skit of Billy Crystal and Christopher Guest on Saturday Night Live discussing ways to hurt yourself (“I hate it when that happens”).
The two are playful together as Jerry and Dave, perfectly juxtaposed to one another. Hawkes’ humor and anger to Lawson’s stodgy reserve laced with derision. They are believable as working class in which the play illuminates the depressed and hidden side of men and the secret frustration of the ladies. While they long for something more at home and lust for night out at the strip over beefcake they can’t have the men struggle for self dignity, through work and pride. The play manages to make something sexy about the average Joe while illuminating human dilemma.
The Full Monty is a musical tall tale mirroring something we all can relate to. It calls out the discrepancies between our sexual taboos, between race and sexual preference, and stubborn prejudices.
Jerry says in reference to women going to strip clubs, in part sadness and partly prideful,” There must be a lot of desperate women in Buffalo.”
To which Dave replies, “Why not? There’s a lot of desperate men in Buffalo.”
And so Dave and Jerry set about finding a group of average Joe’s to be male dancers. Desperate times call for desperate measures