Review: ‘The Full Monty’ Has The Goods At The Wagon Wheel
Review: ‘The Full Monty’ Has The Goods At The Wagon Wheel
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
Review: ‘The Full Monty’ Has The Goods At The Wagon WheelIt’s easy to pick apart our inadequacies when it comes to our bodies. We’re too fat. Too skinny. Too hairy. Too this or too that. And every day we’re bombarded with images, campaigns and opinions of how we should look, that we find it difficult to accept the skin we’re in. “The Full Monty” – the musical at the Wagon Wheel Center for the Arts this week until Sunday – addresses that head-on by stripping a group of six imperfect men down and letting them take ownership of their flaws loud and proud. By the end of the musical, they learn to let go of their fears. Based on the 1997 British comedy-drama movie, the story begins on a girls’ night out at Tony Giordano’s Club in Buffalo, N.Y. All of their husbands have been laid off at the steel mill for the last 18 months, so it’s up to the women to make the money. And to paraphrase one woman in the musical, “Girls who like to work, like to play.” During the first song, “Scrap,” we learn just how useless and pathetic the unemployed men feel and what they want. The audience also gets an introduction to some of the six male leads. Two of the men, Jerry Lukowski (Matthew Janisse) and Dave Bukatinsky (Scott Fuss), are best friends. Jerry hasn’t quite grown up yet and fails at responsibility, even though he has a 12-year-old son, Nathan (Parker Irwin), and an ex-wife, Pam Lukowski (Jennifer Dow), demanding he pay his child support or risk joint custody. Dave’s self-image because of his weight and lack of a job is so bad it’s hurting his relationship with his loving wife, Georgie Bukatinsky (Jamie Finkenthal). As best friends, Janisse and Fuss have a chemistry like Abbott and Costello, the Smothers Brothers and Shaggy and Scooby Doo. “The Full Monty” is both guy’s 18th show at the Wagon Wheel, and they’ve gotten to be really good at what they do on that stage. They’re even better when they’re in a show together, playing off each other’s strengths. In this musical, they have impeccable timing and amazing delivery of their roles, which they were born to play. It’s Georgie who organizes a Chippendales show at the club for the girls night out. After sneaking into the club to see what all the women are whooping and hollering about, Jerry comes up with a harebrained scheme to make $50,000 by doing a one-night only strip show of “real men.” The stripper they meet in the men’s bathroom, Buddy “Keno” Walsh (Caleb Fath), laughs the idea off. But Jerry is determined to pull it off, especially after he and Dave secretly hear what Georgie and Pam have to say about them. After receiving advice about how many men they should have in the show, Jerry decides six is the number they need. They recruit their third guy, Malcolm Macgregor (Jason Brown), while he’s trying to kill himself. He’s also unemployed from the steel mill, has no friends and still lives with his mother. Being Malcolm’s new friends, Jerry and Dave offer him advice on how best to kill himself in the dark, funny number “Big-Ass Rock.” It’s very tongue-in-cheek. Obviously, Malcolm doesn’t do himself in, and he signs up to be in the strip show, despite being pigeon chested. The next guy, Harold Nichols (Danny Burgos), used to be their supervisor and keeps his unemployment a secret from his wife, Vicki Nichols (Sarah Jackson), who loves nice things. They recruit Harold because they find him ballroom dancing with Vicki so they know he can dance. As Vicki, Jackson gets to sing the song “Life With Harold” and she’s amazing. She has a commanding voice that belongs in a sold-out cabaret show. I could listen to her sing solo for hours. She’s flawless. Needing two more guys, Jerry and Dave – and a piano player who recruits herself to the act, Jeanette Burmeister (Kathy Hawkins) – have auditions. The first guy has no rhythm but has four kids. Then Reg Willoughby (Artistic Director Scott Michaels) auditions and Michaels steals the scene. His shy, nervous and awkward audition as Reg had the audience rolling with laughter opening night Tuesday. Off hand I can’t remember the last time I saw Michaels acting in a show, but in “The Full Monty” he delivers some hearty laughs. Reg doesn’t get the job, but Michaels cast himself in the role very well. Can Michaels be topped? As Noah “Horse” T. Simmons, Chuckie Benson does just that with the voice of a soulful R&B crooner and the dance moves of James Brown. Simmons is an older man with a bad hip, but with his talent and the nickname of “Horse,” he gets the job. The last guy to land the job is Ethan Girard (Keaton Eckhoff). He can’t sing, he can’t dance, but he has a gift that even impresses Simmons. His only problem is that he really wants to be like Donald O’Connor, and it becomes a running joke that doesn’t get old. Eckhoff and Brown share a song together that they do really fantastic on. The beautiful song, “You Walk With Me,” is about not being alone because someone else is there with you. Though they’re performers on stage playing their parts, Brown and especially Eckhoff bring a lot of love and compassion to the song. They make it feel like they mean every word of the song, and it’s a beautiful thing. During their first rehearsal, the six guys can’t dance in sync. While one is pivoting, another is doing something totally different. It’s not until Harold brings up basketball that they finally begin to get their moves together. They sing about it in the dance-heavy number “Michael Jordan’s Ball,” which is a highlight. There are several songs in the show which I really enjoyed. Along with “You Walk With Me,” “Big-Ass Rock” and “Michael Jordan’s Ball,” there’s “The Goods” and “Let It Go” in Act II. “The Goods” is funny because it reverses sexist comments and ideas on to the guys. Once the guys start feeling the weight of words like “fat” and “bald,” they start becoming even more anxious about the prospect of taking their clothes off in front of 1,000 women. And as for “Let It Go,” I still had that final number in my head when I woke up this morning. About shedding one’s inhibitions, the guys’ performance of the number is the climax of a show that builds and builds until it just has to burst with a final reveal. Do the guys raise $50,000? Do they learn to accept their bodies? Do they repair their relationships with their wives and child? And, do they take it all off? You’ll have to see the show for the answers to those questions, but it’s definitely a show worth seeing in order to find out the answers to those questions. “The Full Monty” had the audience laughing hard, no matter their age or gender. It’s the encore show, which means it has adult content like language and sexual suggestions, but it’s a show you attend to let it all go and have a great night. I couldn’t laugh any harder than I did Tuesday night. My rating (out of four): 4. For ticket information, visit the website at wagonwheelcenter.org
