Theatre Review

They Got the Goods
Actor’s Playhouse Goes All the Way with The Full Monty

By Mary Damiano

I’ve seen The Full Monty three times, but it wasn’t until I saw the Actor’s Playhouse production of The Full Monty that I actually liked the show.

	The wanna-be strippers of The Full Monty: Vincent D’Elia, Tally Sessions, Eric Leviton (back row) Reggie Whitehead, Michael Turner (second row) Brian C. Golub (front) Photo: Ruben Romeu

Actor’s Playhouse is one of the first regional theatres to get the rights to do The Full Monty, a smash musical that began as a 1997 British movie.  This is a joyous production, and part of the fun comes from the obvious good time the cast is having on stage.

The Full Monty takes place in Buffalo New York, a traditional, blue-collar town where the women’s jobs take a back seat to the men’s position as breadwinner.  But when the steel mill closes the power base shifts—the women are bringing home the bacon and the men are frying it up in a pan.  The emasculated men have lost their self-esteem, especially when they’re expected to do housework while the women are out blowing 50 bucks to whoop and holler at male strippers. 

When Jerry Lukowski (Tally Sessions) finds out that if he doesn’t pay up his back child support payments he will lose joint custody of his son, he devises a money-making scheme—a one night only performance of average, hometown guy strippers.  Jerry and his overweight pal Dave (Eric Leviton) begin recruiting guys for their big plan, ending up with a six-man team that includes a suicidal mama’s boy, a white-collar supervisor, an older black man and a young klutz with hidden talent.  When the women balk at forking over money to see the guys they grew up with go the Chippendales’ route, Jerry goes one better: he and his buds will give their audience the full monty, taking it all off, G-string and all.

Sessions is terrific as a man desperate to hold onto his son.  As both the voice of reason and doubts about himself and the scheme, Leviton is both funny and heartbreaking as Dave, a man struggling with his body image.  Brian M. Golub, with his rubbery body and powerhouse voice, steals every scene he’s in as the milquetoast Malcolm. 

Director David Arisco has staged The Full Monty so that the audience can’t help but pull for these guys and feel a part of the action.

The exuberance of the talented cast breathes new life into what can be a one-gimmick show.  But the actors find the deeper motivations and nuances in the characters, raising The Full Monty into a moving and spirited piece of theatre.

Play Weaves a Wonderful Story
Intimate Apparel Another Triumph for GableStage

By Mary Damiano

While the Intimate Apparel in the title of Lynn Nottage’s play refers to the lovely undergarments sewn by a black seamstress in turn of the century America, it can also be construed as the underpinnings of class and race dictated by society that we all wear.  Under Joseph Adler’s seamless direction, the GableStage production of Intimate Apparel illuminates these ideas and paints a portrait of a woman whose story would otherwise be lost to time.

	Esther (Kameshia Duncan) laces up Mayme’s (Lela Elam) corset in Intimate Apparel Photo: George Schiavone

When we meet Esther (Kameshia Duncan), she is sewing a piece of intimate apparel for a friend’s wedding night.  Esther’s loneliness is palpable.  Unmarried at 35, she has been living in a Manhattan rooming house for 18 years, and has all but given up on love.  This is the irony of Esther’s life.  Her discretion and talent for sewing beautiful undergarments for other women have afforded her a decent living and an independent life for herself, but the act of sewing and fitting the garments make her painfully aware that she has no man of her own.

When a letter unexpectedly arrives for her from George Armstrong (Bechir Sylvain), a laborer who’s working on the Panama Canal, illiterate Esther can’t read it, and rather than involve her nosy landlady Mrs. Dickson (Dorothy Morrison), she allows two of her clients, wealthy uptown Mrs. Van Buren (Sandra Ives) and saloon whore Mayme (Lela Elam) to read the letters and write replies.  George paints a world of longing and desire that Esther can’t resist, even though her heart lies with a sweet fabric merchant, Mr. Marks (Antonio Amodeo) who shares Esther’s passion for beautiful fabrics. But because Mr. Marks is an Orthodox Jew, bound by tradition and a fiancée he has never met, both know the relationship can never go beyond caressing the gorgeous imported silks.

While the first act of Intimate Apparel is nearly perfect, the second act falters because the story seems to detour from what would be organic to the characters.  Still the resolution is satisfying, and the language Nottage uses throughout the play is melodic and lilting.

Both Erin Amico’s costumes and Lyle Baskin’s sumptuous set evokes 1905.  Each character’s space and garb is as distinct and fully fleshed as the characters themselves: Mrs. Van Buren’s ivory lace robe and elegant uptown boudoir is in sharp contrast to the passionate reds which Mayme favors to adorn herself and her room above the saloon in the Tenderloin district.  Mr. Marks’ tenement room is sparse, just a table, tea set and shelves for fabric, while Esther’s room and clothing is plain but functional, the way Esther sees herself. The set places Esther at the raised center of the stage allowing the other characters surround her in their milieu.  As Esther visits each character, she listens to their secrets and becomes a bridge between their worlds. 

Duncan conveys Esther’s pain, loneliness and hope beautifully.  It’s impossible to not feel for her and root for her.  Amodeo is heartbreaking as Mr. Marks, and the scenes between Mr. Marks and Esther are the play’s most powerful.  Ives and Elam both portray women living in the shadow of their dreams—Ives as a mother and society matron she will never be and Elam as a concert pianist who never got her shot—with poignancy.  Morrison is the perfect maternal friend, while Sylvain does a great job of bringing George’s anger and duplicitous nature to life.

Intimate Apparel is as intricately woven as the beautiful fabrics Esther gently pushes through her sewing machine.  The GableStage production should not be missed.