![]() ![]() (You'll likely know if the show is too risqué for you in its first five minutes, which offer a happily unapologetic striptease by the intimidatingly buff Dean Alcott, and the opening lyric "What I want? That's easy, asshole: I want a job.")Īlthough a few of McNally's harsher expletives and Yazbek's saltier lyrics have been deleted (and aren't much missed), it's apparent from the outset that punches won't be pulled here, and beginning with the opening "Scrap" number - in which the steelworkers reveal their frustration through the rhythmic slamming of folding chairs - this wonderfully well-sung Full Monty is rich with feeling and contrasting emotions. ![]() The only prerequisite for enjoying this production, I'm guessing, is a pulse. In retrospect, of course the opening-night clientele had a blast. It isn't often (enough) that you attend Circa '21 and leave with the sort of high that's more akin to a rock-concert experience than a dinner-theatre one, and director/choreographer Jamal McDonald's The Full Monty features so many joyously entertaining musical and comedic sequences, and such spectacularly gifted performers, that you not only want to see it again, but want to immediately call a dozen friends and insist on their joining you. But impassioned applause, cheers, and laughs that sounded like extended shrieks certainly did. ![]() For a venue that cut the word "crap" from 2006's Grease, the choice to produce this particular show was risky, to say the least: Profanity! Nudity! Gay characters holding hands! Just how would Circa '21's regulars take all this? Would they eat it up, or would they finally break their long-standing pact against booing and hissing? So it was with almost delirious excitement that I attended The Full Monty, composer David Yazbek's and book writer Terrence McNally's magnificent musical comedy about unemployed steelworkers who decide to make some quick cash as blue-collar Chippendales. Circa '21's opening-night attendees are, of course, too polite to boo or hiss, but in general, they won't force laughter or applause for productions they don't care for, and they're also a wildly unpredictable bunch I know opening-night patrons who walked out of the gospel musical Smoke on the Mountain at intermission because it was too churchy, and patrons who walked because it wasn't churchy enough. I was really looking forward to the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's production of The Full Monty, but that anticipation was nothing compared to how much I was looking forward to watching Friday's audience watch The Full Monty.Ī mostly older, mostly conservative, mostly subscriber-based group, the theatre's opening-night patrons are a supportive lot, yet can also be the very definition of a tough crowd if a show's not working - or, more specifically, not working for them - they'll let you know it. ![]()
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