Oakland’s ‘Full Monty’: How far will they go?

By Guy D’Astolfo

YOUNGSTOWN — “The Full Monty” makes its Youngstown debut Friday, when the Oakland Center for the Arts opens a three-weekend run of the musical.

Director Robert Dennick Joki said the stage version is very similar to the Oscar winning film of the same name. The only major difference is that the stage version takes place in Buffalo, N.Y., instead of England.

The storyline about unemployed steel workers who form a male striptease show to make much-needed money should strike a chord in Youngstown.

“The script really hit home with me,” said Joki. “We live in an area that is no stranger to factory closings. What we don’t hear a lot about is how those closings affect families, relationships and individuals. In this show, a mill closes and the men of the community are all laid off. As they struggle to find new jobs, ones that pay more than minimum wage, their wives go to work and traditional family roles become reversed. What do you do when your career, your livelihood, is ripped out from under you? How far will you go to support your family?”

In order to make the characters more believable, Joki said he went to great lengths to find actors who look — and sing — like the average Joe in Youngstown. “It’s more like listening to karaoke at Irish Bob’s than watching musical theater,” said Joki.

The central question behind any stage version of “Monty,” of course, is how far do the men go in the final scene? Will they bare all? Joki isn’t saying.

“I’ve watched other productions of the show,” he said. “Some theaters just have the actors strip down to a g-string. Others use skin toned underwear or some kind of silly prosthetic device. Some cut the lights right before the final reveal. The script actually gives you license to go as far as you are comfortable to go.

“We have been rehearsing the last moments of the show on a closed set. The actors have learned two sets of choreography for the final song. Do I know what’s going to happen at the end of the show next Friday? Absolutely. But no one else will know until our cast meeting during intermission on opening night.”