Full Monty Preview

A skin-tillating musical from AACT

Thursday, September 14, 2006
BY JENN MCKEE
News Arts Writer

In the world of spectacle theater, "Miss Saigon'' had a helicopter that landed on stage, and "Phantom of the Opera'' had its huge, floating chandelier. Similarly, the Ann Arbor Civic Theatre's production of "The Full Monty'' will incorporate something that's seldom seen in a play.

But it's probably not what you're thinking.

"We are going to put a real car on stage,'' said director Wendy Sielaff. "My husband has gutted a car, and we're going to pull it into Mendelssohn somehow.''

A neat trick, no doubt. Yet since "full monty'' is British slang for complete nudity, the car is, ahem, hardly what has made the show famous.

Based on the hit 1997 British film of the same name, this musical adaptation of "The Full Monty'' - with a book by Terrence McNally and music and lyrics by David Yazbeck - tells the story of six out-of-work steel mill employees in Buffalo who are struggling to get by. They get the idea to stage a strip show, but tickets don't sell well until they announce their intention to strip down to nothing.

Curt Waugh plays Jerry, the mastermind who has a strong personal motive for putting the show on. "He's a down-on-his-luck guy, and he's trying for a big idea, to try and make some money so he can be with his son,'' said Waugh. "I relate to him on every level. This one's easy.''

What was also a good fit for Waugh was the show's score. "I come from more of a rock background than a theater background, so this show, and its pop-rock style of music, just suits me to a T,'' said Waugh.

Other film-to-musical adaptations haven't fared so well in recent years, of course. But one of the most successful ones of all time - "The Producers'' - shut out "The Full Monty'' at the 2001 Tony Awards. Even so, the musical earned 10 nominations as well as the affection of fans when it toured the country.

"The adaptation, I think, is so much better than the movie,'' said Sielaff. "It's also more relevant to today. ... These are average, everyday guys. They're laid-off.''

Waugh, meanwhile, believes the show's lovable tone and smart structure is what has made it a standout. "While there's a lot of humor throughout the entire show, the songs themselves are very funny,'' Waugh said. "It's never dull, and it's really, really tight. It's almost cinematic in the way it gets from scene to scene. ... It just never lets down.''

Waugh doesn't, either, according to Sielaff. For while playing the leader of this small band of amateur strippers, Waugh himself has set an example for the cast. "He set the bar at the first day of rehearsal, and everybody has met the bar, and he hasn't lowered it,'' said Sielaff. "He just kept a high bar of consistency and quality, and every one of the cast members has said, OK, that's where I've got to go.''

This wasn't the only way in which life imitates art in terms of the show. Though Sielaff and her cast are keeping the exact nature of the production's end under wraps - so that the audience won't know whether or not they will see the cast in all their natural splendor - six regular guys, no matter what, will likely expose more of themselves than they're used to doing.

"The coolest thing about this show is that doing the show is the same as the content of the show,'' said Waugh. "It is the same struggle for the six of us to get over whatever we need to get over to do this, as it is for the characters themselves. ... There's an exact parallel.''

This shared struggle caused a closeness to develop between the actors during the rehearsal process. "If it weren't for the fact that everybody's up there doing it, I wouldn't do it myself,'' said Waugh. "I would never do it by myself. Not in a million years. I'd be too scared. But I got my buddies up there, so it makes it all happen that way.''

And while you might think that a woman being at the helm of this very male show might make things all the more challenging, Waugh insists that Sielaff has been the right person for the job.

"If you knew Wendy, that hardly matters (that she's a woman),'' said Waugh. "She has got the same bawdy sense of humor the rest of us do.''

Jenn McKee can be reached at 734-994-6841 or jmckee@annarbornews.com.