Review: TexARTS' The Full Monty

(l-r) Quincy Kuykendall, Leslie R. Hethcox, Patrick Darab Hartigan, Nathan Daniel Ford, and Stephen Mercantel in The Full Monty (Photo by April Paine)

Professional dancers with dollar bills in their G-strings will tell you that striptease is all about the tease – the buildup of sexual tension and anticipation that leads to the dramatic, long-awaited, and oh-so-brief reveal. It's a delayed gratification sort of thing.

But in The Full Monty – an Americanized musical adaptation of the 1997 British indie film – the strippers are six average, out-of-shape, blue-collar guys who can't dance. And so, amidst early attempts to bump and grind, the sexual tension is effectively traded in for comic relief and anticipation quickly becomes morbid curiosity. With a script by Terrence McNally that serves up abundantly clever dialogue and a score by David Yazbek that beautifully captures moments and relationships without the added burden of advancing the storyline, this frothy musical is both fun and heartfelt.

It revolves around Buffalo, N.Y., lifers Jerry (Patrick Darab Hartigan), Dave (Stephen Mercantel), Harold (Huck Huckaby), Malcolm (Nathan Daniel Ford), Ethan (Leslie R. Hethcox), and "Horse" (Quincy Kuykendall), who are struggling with the weight of emasculation after being laid off at the local steel mill. Desperate times call for desperate measures, especially in musical comedies, so when Jerry notices the cash thrown at touring hard-bodied Chippendale dancers by the town's womenfolk, he hatches a plan to put together an amateur six-man strip show for a one-night-only performance. Their attempt to save face by baring everything from the neck down is met by adversity and ridicule, which makes this nonsensical journey damn near heroic.

And yet, gratification is a bit hard to come by in this TexARTS production, beginning with the underwhelming overture. The fivepiece orchestra (music director Susan Finnigan, Austin Kimble, Corey Finnigan, Kris Rogers, and Chris Gordon) perform very well, but without the richness a few horns would provide and which this music demands. As was the case with this theatre's slimmed-down rendition of Sweeney Todd last February, cutting instruments is a good financial decision but not a great creative choice.

Also impacting gratification is Hartigan's stiff and constrained opening night depiction of Jerry. The script sets up a small-time hustler, regret-filled divorcee, and adoring father of young Nathan (James Schermerhorn), but the actor's delivery lacks conviction on all these fronts. He never musters the subtle humor that turns "Big-Ass Rock" – a hilarious song that lightens the mood surrounding Malcolm's failed suicide by having his buddies offer to help with the task – into a showstopper and keeps it from becoming frighteningly non-PC. While Hartigan is not the only guy onstage who finds the high notes elusive, it is most apparent in the many songs he's assigned.

The actors playing Jerry's mates keep the show afloat and then some with clear characterizations, spot-on comic timing, and an authentic sense of comaraderie. And, under the guidance of director Kasey RT Graham and choreographer Ian Liberto, all six miraculously transition into credible ecdysiasts by the final number, "Let It Go."

Although the guys are given the most time onstage, songs to sing, and clever business to perform, this production's collection of wives (Mia Carter, Rachel Pallante, Michelle Cheney) and female townies (Megan Castleberry, Rebekah Freeland, Courtlin Parisher) refuse to be subjugated. They kick-start the show with a particularly brassy and high-energy "It's a Woman's World" and never let up. When given the opportunity to take center stage with a solo or duet, they milk it for all it's worth.

Cheney is delightful in the comedic, calypso-beat-driven "Life With Harold," where her demure and privileged character lets loose while recounting the wonderful things her affluent husband provides her. She and a wonderful Pallante, who plays Dave's wife, deliver a terrific, tear-jerking reprisal of "You Rule My World," where they reassure their husbands about the depth of their love. Mary Agen Cox, as bawdy veteran nightclub piano accompanist Jeanette, is handed one of the best comic tunes in the musical theatre cannon – "Jeanette's Showbiz Number" – which she nails.

Production values are appropriately simple in this staging. The performance space is surrounded by a stationary set designed by Donna Coughlin that consists of warehouse redbrick walls and Rust Belt industrial windows. Every Buffalo location, established by a piece of furniture or two, includes this reminder of the city's economic hardship.

Lighting and costume designers Lucinda Culver and Christopher Arthur do fine work as well, which is most evident during the show-ending titular moment, where their collective handicraft may be the only thing keeping this theatre from getting fined for indecent exposure. Which would no doubt result in sold-out houses – and the aforementioned delayed gratification.

TexARTS Theater's The Full Monty