Toning Up ‘The Full Monty’ for Broadway

In this context it’d be a shame to use a verb such as “whack.” But shame is a merrily relative concept, and the makers of the musical version of “The Full Monty” have in fact whacked about seven minutes off the show’s running time since the June 1 opening at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre.

Trims and revisions made to this tale of six unemployed steelworkers stripping for cash went in last weekend. The changes were implemented by the Broadway-bound show’s creative team, led by director Jack O’Brien, librettist Terrence McNally and composer-lyricist David Yazbek. All are toiling under the watchful eye of producer Lindsay Law, former head of Fox Searchlight Pictures, the company that made hay on the British movie of the same name.

The Old Globe tryout closes its extended run Sunday. Previews for the Broadway transfer begin at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre on Sept. 26, with an Oct. 26 opening.

Thus far, the changes are all for the better. O’Brien and company have focused on tightening up and clarifying Act 1’s first 30 minutes or so. The protagonist, single father Jerry (Patrick Wilson), no longer sings “Red Camaro.” That tune, which tended to generalize the character’s predicament, has been dropped, along with “The Ship Sailed On.” In their place is “Man,” a more specific and funnier tune, offering Yazbek’s “bonus” and “cojones” rhyme, as well as a quick swipe at Tom Cruise (real men prefer Lee Marvin). For satiric purposes, “Man” also samples a few notes’ worth of Elmer Bernstein’s “Magnificent Seven” theme.

Emily Skinner, recently on Broadway with “Side Show,” now has an Act 1 number, “Life With Harold,” in addition to a cha-cha dance break with her unemployed executive husband, played by Marcus Neville.

Yazbek’s opening number, “Scrap”--good enough to give “The Full Monty” a strong, quirky musical personality straight off--has been reworked somewhat. In Act 2, the plaintive, moving “Breeze Off the River,” sung by Jerry to his son, includes a new section. The show needs such low-keyed interludes. With a surfeit of raucous (and often obvious) banter in McNally’s chatty, discursive, can’t-resist-another-wiener-reference libretto, you’re very glad for Yazbek’s contribution. The evening’s other genuinely moving song, “You Walk With Me,” remains intact, sung beautifully by Malcolm (Jason Danieley) and Ethan (Romain Fruge).

“The Full Monty” now clocks in at about 2 hours and 45 minutes. For better or worse, McNally’s somewhat unwieldy book dominates the proceedings. (Yazbek’s songs, many of them brashly inspired, total a modest 13, only one of which gets a reprise.) With the revisions, you sense McNally straining to make the central father-son relationship pay off in emotional terms.

On second viewing, I still think the show’s writers are too preoccupied with giving Jerry an i.c.a. (infernal character arc), so that he starts out a lazy, irresponsible, homophobic lout and ends up a great dad and a more accepting human being. (An actor like Jarrod Emick, Joe Hardy in O’Brien’s production of “Damn Yankees,” might pull off the transition better.) The film managed its observations of manhood and body image lightly and charmingly. On stage, it’s all a bit much. And I wonder if a Buffalo, N.Y.-set version of this story wouldn’t be better off set back a few years.

At least one U.S. congressman wishes the show weren’t set in Buffalo at all. Republican Jack Quinn, who represents western New York state, last month publicized his letter to McNally citing the show’s “incorrect and irresponsible” depiction of Buffalo as a Nowheresville on the ropes.

As Jeanette Burmeister, who accompanies the boys on piano in the key of wiseacre, Kathleen Freeman gets her share of the Buffalo jokes, along with the groin jokes, and several other varieties. She’s a wonder, and at a spry, wry 81, a revelation, as much as a familiar and well-loved face can be, at least.

Freeman’s film career goes back a long way, further even than “Singin’ in the Rain” (1952), in which she attempted to coach Jean Hagen in the pronunciation of the sentence “And I cahhhhn’t stahhhnd him.” Her “Full Monty” turn has Tony nomination plastered all over it, if only for the Act 2 opener, now titled “Jeanette’s Number” (instead of “Jeanette’s Blues”).

The 2001 Tony nomination list might very well include nods for Andre De Shields’ flashy footwork and Yazbek’s score. We’ll see how the show fares when the trousers hit the stage floor on Broadway. For now, the changes have made this uneven, over-full but entertaining show more viable.