It's nearly always a good sign when a show drags an audience member around between ugh and whee! That's pretty much what happened to me with The Full Monty, the final production of Stages St. Louis.
The show is an adaptation of an Oscar-nominated British film about unemployed steel workers in England. They've moved it to Buffalo for this musical version, and the transition works well. Our heroes decide that they'll put on a show to earn money, but this isn't the Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland stuff. They want to go the Chippendales route.
The whole male stripper thing has always struck me as a tad sophomoric, but everyone to their own taste, so that's fine. The basic story lines are really quite strong – single dads, depression, homophobia, racial stereotypes and obesity, for instance. But early on there's a discussion wherein one character urges another to go drag his wife out of a Chippendales-type show. While totally in keeping with the characters at that point, that's a sort of automatic low growl for many of us. I'm just sayin' here.
But things got considerably better from there, although sometimes not in the best of taste, not that that's necessarily a bad thing. This is a very rowdy show. And practically no one left at intermission. The script by Terrence McNally, despite a little more sexism than what I spoke of, is surprisingly good. And the staging is swell.
But it's the cast that makes this show rise above. One of the great charms of the Robert Reim Theatre, Stages' venue, is that it's so small one can see the details of how even the minor characters work. Jerry, the mastermind of the dance group, is Brent Michael Diroma, and he does a great job. But it's hard to keep one's eyes off Todd A. Horman as Dave Bukatinsky, Jerry's best pal, or James Ludwig, playing Harold Nichols, the efficiency expert who's gotten a dose of his own medicine, for instance. Leah Berry, playing Jerry's ex-wife Pam, is totally believable. Other strong women abound like Julie Cardia, playing Vicki Nichols, the expert's spendy wife and Jeanette Burmeister, who's played by Zoe Vonder Haar. Jeanette is the pianist for the group, and may have the best lines in the play. (I want to be Jeanette when I grow up.) Special notice has to go to Cole Hoefferle, who's Pam and Jerry's son Nathan. Hoeffererle, who, with the guileless face of a young Mel Torme, is the epitome of subtlety, with a gift for comedy played that way.
Stages' usual fine choreography, here masterminded by Stephen Bourneuf, was particularly important here, as was the lighting design of Matthew McCarthy, especially in the final scene. Michael Hamilton directed.
No, maybe it's not for everyone. But the bottom line is lightly titillating and mostly fun.
The Full Monty
through October 4
Stages St. Louis
Kirkwood Community Center
111 S. Geyer Rd., Kirkwood
314-821-2407