They’re Disrobing and Disarming

Pity “The Full Monty.” A slam-dunk musical sensation based on a sleeper hit of a movie goes to Broadway, but a funny thing happens on the way to “It” status: Mel Brooks’ “The Producers” steals all of the Tonys and then, to add insult to injury, an even more eye-opening commedia dell’ genitalia opens in New York, not so humbly called “Puppetry of the Penis.”

If “Puppetry of the Penis” opened across the street from Giordano’s, the Chippendales-like club in Buffalo that serves as the setting for the Americanized musical of “The Full Monty,” which show would the ladies select? Probably the puppets, at least for some variety, but let’s suspend disbelief: Let’s pretend that it’s present-day Buffalo and there is only beefcake in leather G-strings to choose from.

It is this time and space--upstate New York, neglected urban core, a place of malls, steel girders and no viable prospects--that is presented by “The Full Monty,” which opened Wednesday night at the Ahmanson Theatre. This is a new national touring production of a show that is proving itself a durable franchise; after debuting two years ago at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, the show is still going on Broadway and has opened in London, among other international markets.

The saga of six unemployed steel mill workers who decide to strip for cash and, as it turns out, even more-needed self-worth, “The Full Monty” has been moved from its cinematic home, Sheffield, England; instead of pints, guys talk about the football Bills.

Despite jokes you can see coming from Ithaca and an opening 20 minutes that feel awfully sluggish and expository, “The Full Monty” is nevertheless difficult to resist in the end. The sets are clever and streamlined, the pacing spry. The talented core cast, under the direction of Jack O’Brien and choreographer Jerry Mitchell, nicely moves from disparate strangers to a unified band of reluctant strippers.

Audiences, to be sure, walk into this nearly three-hour show with a working definition of what’s in store. This is perhaps no surprise, given that the 1997 movie was, in the words of President Bush, “a uniter, not a divider,” drawing in art-house snobs and people who generally don’t go to foreign movies, fearing they will have to read.

There was a dark story of male aggression and desperation there, but the movie turned the socioeconomics of its setting into comedy with a bite.

Fox Searchlight, which was behind the movie, had every reason to believe the story would work as fodder for musical theater. And the same unambiguous, plucky appeal that made the movie a hit pervades the musical, augmented by a Terrence McNally book that is well-structured and often witty but also stretches into polemics and, at times, surprisingly flat exposition. The score, by David Yazbek, is a more consistent pleasure, imbuing the show with wit and heart.

Our six protagonists are led by deadbeat-ish but big-hearted dad Jerry Lukowski (Christian Anderson). Desperate to raise the money needed to pay his child support, Jerry alights upon the idea of forming an all-male revue of local guys for a one-night-only performance, a misadventure in which he’s joined initially by his overweight pal Dave (Michael Todaro).

As Jerry, Anderson gives a somewhat pinched performance (you can hear him clearly enough but can’t sense who he is), though the show really isn’t about emotional heavy lifting, and it’s easy enough to intuit Jerry’s anger and immaturity. Todaro as Dave is an amiable sidekick, nimbly underselling his character’s hapless self-loathing.

If the show is a bit flat at the outset, when just the two of them are onstage, the cavalry arrives soon enough. Cleavant Derricks as Noah “Horse” T. Simmons makes the most of “Big Black Man,” which spoofs, well, a certain form of envy.

While “The Full Monty” is a guy thing, the most consistent and dynamic moments of comic relief come from two female characters set up for just this purpose: Heidi Blickenstaff as Vicki Nichols, hyperventilating wife of laid-off company man Harold Nichols, and Carol Woods as Jeanette Burmeister, who shows up in “The Full Monty” as if special-ordered from Central Casting.

Jeanette, ostensibly, arrives as the accompanist for the guys as they rehearse their dance act. But her role is really more of a seen-it-all show-biz commentator, armed with zingers. “If you want to be in show business, you should be spayed first,” Jeanette says at one point. Sing it, sister.

And Woods does sing, kicking off Act 2 with “Jeanette’s Showbiz Number.” By then, Yazbek’s music has probably already won you over. In the film of “The Full Monty,” 1970s disco provided a comedic counterpoint to the losing war the characters were waging against their machismo (the film’s standout moment coming when the guys are in the unemployment line, cryptically gyrating despite themselves to the strains of Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff”).

McNally tries to replicate this moment with a funeral scene, but it seems forced and, ultimately, not entirely necessary.

Yazbek’s score, meanwhile, is no homage to disco; lyrically, it’s a riff on contemporary guy culture, with music that never strains to be overtly memorable or bombastic. Hired to write the music for “The Full Monty” after amassing an eclectic resume (he’s formed his own bands, has producing credits for the pop band XTC and spent a year as a writer for David Letterman), Yazbek brings to “The Full Monty” a light comic touch.

Most winning are a number in which Jerry and Dave play around with different ways to help would-be suicide victim Malcolm (Geoffrey Nauffts) off himself, and “Michael Jordan’s Ball,” in which the guys mimic basketball moves as means of exploring their less masculine, hoofer sides.

“Let It Go,” the striptease number that closes the show, leads up to the will-they-or-won’t-they issue that gives the story its central gimmick. Except it’s not all that climactic; in fact, the moment of truth arrives almost as a throwaway, an obligatory piece of business for which audience participation is enlisted, the stripping version of karaoke.

By then, “The Full Monty,” is running on goodwill, not tension. The big moment arrives, sort of, but is that all you people can think about?

*

“The Full Monty: The Musical,” Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave, Los Angeles. Regular schedule: Tuesdays through Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7:30 p.m. (May 26, June 2, 2 p.m. only; May 23, 30, June 6, 2 p.m.) Ends June 8. $25 to $75. (213) 628-2772. Running time: 2 hours, 50 minutes.

Christian Anderson...Jerry Lukowski

Michael J. Todaro...Dave Bukatinsky

Cleavant Derricks...Noah “Horse” T. Simmons

Geoffrey Nauffts...Malcolm MacGregor

Christopher J. Hanke...Ethan Girard

Robert Westenberg...Harold Nichols

Heidi Blickenstaff...Vicki Nichols

Carol Woods...Jeanette Burmeister

Jennifer Naimo...Georgie Bukatinsky

Bret Fox/Brett Murray...Nathan Lukowski

Book by Terrence McNally. Music and lyrics by David Yazbek. Directed by Jack O’Brien. Scenic design by John Arnone. Costumes by Robert Morgan. Lightning by Howell Brinkley. Musical director Ted Sperling. Choreography by Jerry Mitchell. Sound by Tom Clark and Nevin Steinberg.