Fun in Dundalk with 'The Full Monty'

There is a dilemma familiar to all theatre critics that is particularly appropriate to productions of The Full Monty, the musical based on the Oscar-nominated film about a group of unemployed British steelworkers (the musical transplants the setting to Buffalo, New York) who, desperate for cash and low on self-esteem, decide to put on a strip show.

The would-be strippers have very little with which to recommend themselves—they can’t dance, they can’t sing, and they suffer from various symptoms common to the middle-aged male, chief among them baldness, beer-bellies, and bad backs.  Undaunted, they market themselves as “real men,” and when that fails to move tickets, they vow to do something their glitzier competition at the local Chippendales club would never do: whip off their G-strings and give ’em “the full monty.”

Naturally, their one-night-only engagement sells out—in fact, the whole town shows up, presumably for a good laugh.  But when the music comes on and the big lugs start peeling away the layers, a funny thing happens—the laughs turn to cheers, which turn to wild shouts and applause, and by the end of the number, the men are stars.

Which brings me back to that familiar dilemma.  I do not think The Full Monty is a good musical—it’s part of an unfortunate recent trend wherein Broadway producers acquire the rights to quirky hit movies, then team well-regarded playwrights with pop composers (in this case, Terrence McNally and David Yazbek) to slather generic top-40 melodies onto stock characters and greeting card sentiments, then package the whole thing for the most massive of mass markets.

But none of this was news back in 2000, when The Full Monty opened on Broadway (following Footloose and Saturday Night Fever, and followed soon after by the 800-pound gorilla known as The Producers).  And none of it matters, I’m sure, to the cast and crew of Dundalk Community Theatre, whose production of The Full Monty opened this past weekend.  They put on a funny and entertaining show, so that, much like the audience in the Buffalo strip club, I can’t help but cheer for the performers, if not for their vehicle.

Of the performers, the six actors who play the strippers are the most crucial, and to a man, they are skilled enough singers and dancers to convince you their characters are not.  The “brains” behind the stripping operation is Jerry Lukowski (Brian Jacobs).  Jerry is way behind on his child support payments—if he can’t come up with some quick cash, he risks losing his son, Nathan (Peter Pferdeort), to his ex-wife and her snotty, white-collar boyfriend.

Jacobs stresses Jerry’s wide-eyed, “big kid” qualities without ever seeming cartoonish, and Pferdeort stresses Nathan’s wiser-than-his-years wittiness without ever seeming obnoxious.  They play well off each other and give the obligatory father-son moments a bit more poignancy than perhaps the script deserves.

Dean Davis also finds moments of poignancy as Jerry’s best friend, Dave Bukatinsky, who cycles between fretting over his weight (Dave is the “fat” stripper) and wanting to help out his buddy.  Davis sings one of the wittier numbers in the show, a love song to his tummy called “You Rule My World” that is surprisingly touching.

The two most consistently enjoyable performances, though, come from the supporting cast.  Joe Frollo is sensational as Malcolm, a lonely night watchman at the plant where Jerry and Dave used to work.  Malcolm is invited to join the show primarily because he has a key to an empty warehouse that becomes a rehearsal room, but as Frollo throws his limber body around the stage, his sweet face lighting up at the mere hint of praise, one cannot imagine the show without him.

Malcolm gradually bonds with another loveable outcast, Ethan (Drew Gaver), whose singular qualification for stripping (as we learn in a very effectively staged scene) would also qualify him for a role in Boogie Nights.  For much of the show, Ethan is written as though he were the intellectual and emotional equal of a four-year-old, yet an unconvincing plot twist in Act II remolds him into a “big-ass rock” for Malcolm to lean on.  Gaver somehow finds a balance between these two very different personalities, and his moving duet with Frollo, “You Walk With Me,” is so well sung, it nearly makes one forget its total lack of justification in the script.

Thom Sinn and Troy Hopper are effective as the other two strippers, Harold and “Horse” (a nickname … for what, I’m sure you can guess).  Hopper in particular has a lot of fun in his character’s introductory number, “Big Black Man” (you thought the writers would miss the chance to crack that joke?).  My only gripe is that Hopper doesn’t come close to resembling a man in his fifties, though the script is very specific about Horse’s age.  At the very least, Costumes Coordinator James J. Fasching could have applied some baby powder to Hopper’s hair and beard.  (While we’re on the subject of curious costuming, could someone explain to me what characters from Hairspray are doing in upstate New York?)

The women of Buffalo have considerably less to do, though they bring a lot of energy to an early number called “It’s a Woman’s World.”  Dave’s wife Georgie—who fears she is losing her husband and frequents strip clubs to feel young again—gets the fullest treatment, and Tammy Crisp’s forceful performance makes the case that even more should have been done with her character.  Becca Vourvoulas wisely plays Jerry’s ex-wife, Pam, as a sympathetic woman pushed to her limits by Jerry’s inability to live up to his end of the parenting bargain.

Andrea Wildason does what she can with the thankless role of Harold’s wife Vicki, who is asked to shrug off the realization that her husband has been lying to her for six months so that she can support him in his stripping endeavors.  Wildason dances up a storm during Vicki’s big number, “Life with Harold,” but I found it difficult to hear her as she sang, one of several victims of malfunctioning microphones the night I saw the show.  Marge Ricci gets well-earned laughs as show-biz veteran Jeanette Burmeister, who inexplicably appears at the warehouse to accompany the men on the piano.

Marc W. Smith’s set design makes efficient use of the fly space above the stage, and the dazzling curtain of streamers that frames the climactic strip number is gorgeous.  Indeed, all the design elements come together with Vincent Musgrave’s choreography to close the show in impressive fashion, and director Robert W. Oppel cleverly plants his cast in the audience to cheer on the guys as they move ever closer to baring it all.  Chances are by this time, you’ll be cheering too.

The Full Monty is playing at the Community College of Baltimore County, Dundalk, located at 7200 Soller Points Road, on Fridays and Saturdays at 8 PM, and Sundays at 3 PM, through May 17^th. Tickets are $14-$22. For more information, visit http://www.ccbcmd.edu/performingarts/dct.html or call 443-840-2787.

 

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