Review of Kokandy Productions' The Full Monty at Theater Wit

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called The Full Monty. The book was by Terrence McNally. Music and Lyrics were by David Yazbek. Music Direction was by Kory Danielson and the choreography was by Daniel Spagnuolo. It was directed by John D. Glover. It was about these six guys whose factory shut down and then they decided that to make money and win back their wives they would have to become strippers. They wanted to show the women that you can't just find a Chippendale on the street and make that man your husband and they wanted to show them what an actual man is like. I thought this was a really weird and cool show. It is weird because it is not every day that you hear a plot like that! And it is cool because it is funny, you care about the characters, and it is awesome.

I think that it is good that they don't make all the characters all in really good shape and stuff. They make them each have problems. That shows that you don't have to muscular to be a real man; you just have to be…a man. Jerry's (Garret Lutz) problem is his marriage. His ex-wife Pam (Laura McClain) doesn't even want to be friends with him anymore because he wasn't acting like a father, he was acting like a best friend and a child. And she doesn't want that in a husband. But then he puts an act all together with his friends which shows that he could put together a life. Dave's problem is that he feels like he is not even a person because he's not in the best shape physically and he doesn't have a job and his wife Georgie (Marsha Harman) doesn't feel like he loves her anymore. But he doesn't realize that no matter what, his wife will still love him. I think the cutest couple in the play was definitely Malcom (George Toles) and Ethan (Greg Foster). They seemed like they could just be good friends, but they seemed like they could be in love too. Malcom would probably never have found out what sexuality he was, because he didn't really know anything before this (he was not the brightest), if he had not met Ethan while they were doing exotic dancing. Harold (Eric Lindahl) was the one who had the best kind of life before. He was very rich before the company shut down. Harold's problem is that he thinks his wife Vicki (Colette Todd), who loves beautiful new things, won't love him anymore if he tells her that he lost his job. He brings some of the dance experience because they found him dancing the tango with his wife at a dance class. Horse (Randolph Johnson) was a fantabulous dancer. I want to take dance from him. He did a bunch of uptown funk-like stuff, and that is how he got onto the team. His song that he sang with it was just great.

I really liked their rehearsals and their auditions where they had this old-lady piano player Jeanette (Caron Buinis) who talked about how she had worked with Frank Sinatra and a bunch of famous people from the Fifties and Sixties. I liked how she would tell everyone about everything in her life and she would compare whatever other people were saying happened in their life to her experiences with a bunch of famous people. I really liked how she was introduced by her starting to talk and someone said, "Who's she?" And someone else said, "I don't know. She was just here." I think I identify with the son of Jerry, Nathan (Seth Steinberg), because he was in a place that some people would find very bad for a kid to be, like he was at the auditions and the show and I was also at the show. But I don't think it was super bad because he got to spend more time with his Dad and I don't think any of this was new. I think it taught him about how to work together as a team and friendship and how to deal with insecurities.

Here are a few of my favorite funny moments. One of the ones that made me crack up was when Buddy (Charlie Rasmann), who was the main attraction at the strip show, his boyfriend (Royen Kent) walked by and was like, "That's it! I'm starting the car!" in a sort of valley-girl-type way. And he was pulling his coat very tight and crossing his arms and he seemed very upset about it. And there was this one guy, Ethan, who wanted to be able to do the "Make 'Em Laugh" running up the wall move. The only thing was, he just couldn't. He kept running into the wall. And I thought that was hilarious. I always love slapstick comedy and this was so funny! I really liked when Jerry and Dave were stuck in the bathroom stall listening to their wives talking about how awesome the strippers were and then they slowly opened the door when there were no women in the bathroom anymore. And they were just squished in there like a meatball.

People who would like this show are people who like old-lady piano players, running into walls, and educational exotic dancing. I think people should definitely go see this show. It was really fun, and the music and dancing were both great.


Photos: Joshua Albanese Photography