Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Column

Comedy bares its soul, revealing warm heart

By BARBARA FREDRICKSEN, Arts & Entertainment
Published January 6, 2008

If you think the musical comedy The Full Monty is only about guys getting naked on stage, you'd be dead wrong.

Yes, the six fellows, less than physically perfect, do take it off, take it all off in the big finale, but that moment is simply an exclamation point on a wonderful, beautiful show about love, honor, commitment, loyalty and character.

The Show Palace Dinner Theatre has once more produced a show that sounds dangerously titillating (think Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and La Cage aux Folles) but turns out to be a terrific and heart-warming story. (Still, because of profane language, it's not really suitable for those 13 or younger.)

It works because of director Matthew McGee's stellar cast (with one glaring exception, but more on that later), Tom Hansen's evocative sets and mood-setting light design, Susan Haldeman's perfectly timed light cues, Angela Hoerner's apt costumes and Andi Sperduti's snappy choreography.

The Full Monty is about a bunch of laid-off steelworkers in Buffalo, N.Y., who, in financial desperation, decide to put on a strip show to raise some money.

Ringleader Jerry Lukowski (an appealing Larry Buzzeo) is trying to scratch together some dough to pay back child support so he can see his son, Nathan (LJ Jones). The tubby Dave Bukatinsky (an outstanding Todd M. Eskin) is trying to regain his self-esteem so he can once more be a husband to his loving wife Georgie (a spunky, gorgeous Regina Fernandez). Malcolm MacGregor (Aaron Wooten) takes care of his mom, Molly (Stefani Wells), but longs for more suitable companionship. Ethan Girard (Tyler Fish) just wants to join the fellows. Former plant supervisor Harold Nichols (Broadway veteran Vincent D'Elia) hopes to get some money to keep pleasing his high-living wife, Vicki (Katie Kerwin). And former fast-food server Noah "Horse" T. Simmons (Damron Russel Armstrong) just wants a job.

Composer-lyricist David Yazbek's score scores the big moments, as when Armstrong's Horse and the guys chew the scenery in the rousing Big Black Man, and Kerwin simply electrifies the stage with the saucy, high-energy Life with Harold.

Buzzeo gets his best moment in the tender Breeze Off the River, a paean to his sleeping son. Eskin's Dave and D'Elia's Harold are touching when they sadly sing You Rule My World to their sleeping wives in Act 1, but it's Ms. Fernandez's Georgie and Ms. Kerwin's Vicki who bring tears when they sing it back to their husbands in Act 2.

Wooten's Malcolm rips your heart out with the gentle lament You Walk with Me, intensified when he's joined by Fish's Nathan, creating the most emotional moment in the show.

The only puzzling element in the show was casting a relatively young Pat Getty as the fellows' pianist, Jeanette Burmeister. The been-there, done-that attitude and cultural references to Arthur Godfrey, Lawrence Welk, Kate Smith, Buddy Greco and Frank Sinatra suggest a woman in her 80s, and, indeed, the late Kathleen Freeman was 81 when she originated the Tony Award-nominated role on Broadway.

An advanced age gives Jeanette the freedom to comment on the fellows' physical shortcomings with a jaundiced eye, while a younger woman doing it just seems inappropriate. Some good, Ruth Buzzi-style makeup, a moth-eaten, sagging sweater and some deft acting, like the youngish Armstrong is doing as Harold, and Getty might be able to really nail this part.

That said, The Full Monty is one great night of fun, laughs and tears, a story that can be savored over and over.

FAST FACTS: 

If you go

The Full Monty, matinees and evenings through Feb. 24 at the Show Palace Dinner Theatre, 16128 U.S. 19, Hudson. Dinner and show, $44; show only, $32.95; ages 12 and younger, $26.45 and $21.45, all plus tax and tip. Call (727) 863-7949 in west Pasco; toll-free elsewhere at 1-888-655-7469. Recommended for ages 14 and older.

[Last modified January 5, 2008, 21:47:17]