Review: Go THE FULL MONTY at Carlisle Theatre Company

There are times you just gotta laugh. One of those times is at THE FULL MONTY. Yes, the original 1997 movie was funny. But thanks to production numbers of unbridled silliness, the musical, with book by Terrence McNally and a score by David Yazbek is funnier. So, of course, to Americans, is setting it in Buffalo. (It may even be funnier to be set in Buffalo in other countries. I've been in Buffalo.) On Broadway first in 2002, and everywhere else since then, the fun is currently on stage at Carlisle Theatre Company.

Stepping back from his usual place at the helm, Artistic Director Dustin LeBlanc puts the show in the hands of directors Karis Sheffer and Janel Gleeson. That's a necessity as LeBlanc had the lead part of Jerry Lukowski on his bucket list. We're glad he did; not only is he a decent comic actor, but his performances in the one of the show's two comic highlight songs, "Big Ass Rock," and the ballad "Breeze Off the River" are worth coming to see in themselves. "Big Ass Rock" is helped by the delight of Tyler Wonders as Dave Bukatinsky and Greg Athanasatos as Malcolm, the security guard in need of said rock. Funnier than "You've Got A Friend," more sentimental than death metal, it's a piece of male bonding that never fails to please audiences, especially as, when here, the dynamics of the trio are right.

The comic show stopper of this musical, however, is always the number at the top of the second act, "Jeanette's Showbiz Number," delivered by the guys'/would-be strippers' pianist, former nightclub accompanist Jeanette. Becky Wilcox is a perfectly riotous Jeanette, full of tobacco, booze, and piss and vinegar. The song itself is a comic gem of Rat Pack era excess ("I've played for hoofers who can't hoof/I've played for tone-deaf singers/And once, when I insulted Frank/I played with broken fingers"), and Wilcox always excels in playing those late-middle-aged-and-over Women With Attitude parts of which Jeanette is the most attitudinal known.

Ayat Muhammed sings and "can't dance" his way through the show with great humor, playing the anti-stereotype black guy despite his swagger in "Big Black Man," the showpiece for his character, Horse. Athanasios and Kyle Malinosky give an audience-approved hymn that becomes something more at Malcolm's mother's funeral in "You Walk With Me."

If not much is being said about the women, it's because unlike many musicals, FULL MONTY has a major retinue of males singing and dancing their way through going from unemployed factory workers to star strippers. But Anna Heckert's Georgie Bukatinsky is wonderful, loving a husband who doesn't get the message, just as Stephanie Via's Vicki Nichols mistakenly appears to her husband Harold (Eric Mansilla) to love the things he buys more than she loves him.

But special props must go to Ethan Underwood, who plays Nathan, Jerry's and Pam's (Kiara Denver) teen son, who loves his father and is desperate to see his dad succeed at just one thing - anything, whether it's working or pulling off a stripper routine. Underwood is a talented young performer in his first full-scale non-school play, and we may hope to see much more of him in other shows in the area.

The set, by Seth Shoemaker, is nicely minimal but rust-belt industrial, making the economic hardship of the area at the time palpable to the audience. With the addition of some wonderful lighting work by Enslinger Lighting, the show pulls together visually just as it should. If there's any issue with the show, it's, as it is so often, occasional sound difficulties; it's sometimes hard for those who don't already know the show to make out lyrics at first, and you don't dare miss a single word of "Big Ass Rock" or "Jeanette's Showbiz Number".

Through the 17th at Carlisle Theatre Company. Some rough factory worker language and sexual humor that might not be appropriate for kids, though Nathan Lukowski might argue with that. Call 717-258-0666 or visit carlisletheatrecompany.com for tickets. YOU'RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN follows next month.

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