By Eric George Tauber
SAN DIEGO — In 2005, I was part of a theatre troupe touring high schools in South Bay. During the Q&A, one girl asked if nudity was necessary to be “a complete actor.” When it was my turn to respond, I said, “Ain’t nobody gonna pay good money to see me naked. …We can sit here and talk about art. But at the end of the day, this is a business and folks expect their money’s worth.”
Photo-shopped images of models have become so ubiquitous that they seem normal, making our normal bodies seem sub-standard by comparison. Many young women starve themselves while guys lift crushing weights at the gym. Yet attaining these ideals is a tartarean endeavor.
And this brings us to Buffalo, New York where a steel mill has been shut down and the men laid-off. A+ to Scenic Designer Sarah Mouyai who brings us inside the stark and gloomy abandoned mill. Even when we’re not inside it, it is inside of us, in every moment of the story.
“What do I want? … I want to feel like a person, not a slob.”
When you’re unemployed, depression sets in quickly. Adding insult to injury, traditional roles are reversed as the women become the bread-winners and their men keep house. Tug Wilson is totally relatable as Jerry Lukowski, the frustrated, out of work shmendrick who’s way behind on his child support payments and desperate to make something of himself again.
With some money to spend, the gals treat themselves to a night out. They get pretty feisty singing “It’s a woman’s world” while cheering on a male stripper. Carter Piggee exudes confident swagger as the stripper, Keno. When Jerry finds out how much money he’s making, he hatches a plan:
Get some of the guys get together to do a male strip show. The catch: none of them have strippers’ bodies. Since you gotta have a gimmick, they decide to “go the full monty.” (This is British slang for going all the way. The original 1997 film was set in Sheffield, England. The musical, originating at the Old Globe in 2000, was set in Buffalo, NY.)
The auditions go as you’d expect of a bunch of beer-drinking amateurs with no dance background. But then Domonique D Evans really got the crowd howling as Horse, exuding a James Brown level of energy in “Big Black Man.”
Kimberly Moller absolutely owns it, belting out “Life with Harold” with flair. Tall and statuesque, she and the more petite Leo Yu-Ning Chang make adorably unlikely pair.
It was a pleasure to see Professor Emerita Paula Kalustian come out of retirement to play Jeanette, a has-been who’s ever dropping names of show-biz moguls whose lurid attentions she once spurned.
The Full Monty is a hoot and a howl that will have you cheering for these shlubs to take it off. But more than that, it’s a lesson in how we view ourselves. The very first chapter of the Torah teaches us that we are all made in the glorious image of God. And maybe we need some working stiffs to nude down to remind us of that.
For more information, visit https://sdsufullmonty.wordpress.com
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Tauber is a freelance writer specializing in coverage of the arts. He may be contacted via eric.tauber@sdjewishworld.com.
Watson. Tug Watson.