Twigs And Berries - "The Full Monty" - Runaway Stage Productions

Left: Over the entrance of the 24th Street Theater. Does the illustration show a bit too much leg for general public consumption?


A very pleasant, libertine kind of Sunday afternoon, checking out Runaway Stage's "The Full Monty."

This is a fun comedy. According to the RSP folks, it sold very well on Friday and Saturday evenings, but because it was a holiday weekend, because events like the State Fair and the Rainbow Festival were sucking out the oxygen in the Sacramento air, and because the Sunday matinee audiences tend to be older (and presumably less interested in risque material), attendance was off. Well, there's just no excuse for that! Round up the girls (and the guys) - even if everyone is just out of church - and head on over!

Left: Final Bows - Actors acknowledge the orchestra, conducted by Christopher Cook (right).

Left to right: At edge of photo, Mary Young. Floyd Harden, Lauren Miller, Tristan Rumery, Craig Howard, Michael R.J. Campbell, Scott Fera, Stephen Russell, Kyle Young, Netty Carey, Sammy Duncan, Anahita Savarnejad, Andrew Skogkebo.


I was quite impressed with Scott Fera, who played an excellent Jerry Lukowski. It was pleasure listening to him sing 'Man,' as well as 'Breeze Off The River.' We'll have to see Scott in more shows! Michael R.J. Campbell was at his inimitable best as Dave Bukatinsky, Jerry's friend. Craig Howard was amusing as former human relations department supervisor, and dancing instructor, Harold Nichols. Stephen Russell was much too young to play 50-year-old Noah Simmons, but imaginative use of hair-white helped.

Every show featuring nekkid people still needs a clotheshorse. That role was played by Mary Young, who sported these amazing, colorful brocaded creations by Lillian Baxter.

The six Main Men of the show had one important advantage, compared to many competing community theater shows - they were all quite good looking. I mean, with or without clothes, they look JUST fabulous - nice pecs, smooth skin, muscular (why do I even choose words like these - perhaps I have ISSUES I'd care not to dwell on?)

One weakness of the show may be its script. Some of the language seemed sort of stilted to me. One example was the bathroom discussion between Georgie (Heather Sheridan) and Pam (Lauren Miller). There were two sentences, or so, that sounded as if an academic had written them. It wasn't an acting problem, it was that these two characters would not have made these particular word choices. Perhaps since the show had a working class English origin, and had to be reworked for an American setting, some difficulties crept into the rewrite.

The popularity of the show hinges on the universality of its message - finding dignity, and happiness, in a world that often denies it. Issues regarding body image are often involved, and the show is among the most direct you'll ever see regarding these issues. Employment, and happiness at work, are very important too. In fact, the principal message of the show is so inherently powerful that I wonder why other people didn't think of it before. Why didn't Rodgers and Hammerstein do "The Full Monty"?

There was a brief technical glitch at the top of the show - the taped music didn't start for a few seconds. Stripping without music can be made to work, if necessary, as long as the fantasy is maintained (need beach balls - big beach balls, and feathers). I remember a friend describing once having seen a bored stripper go through her routine while conversing with a friend about her day - shopping for groceries, cleaning the bathtub, mopping floors. My friend said the dissonant experience of the popped fantasy was quite painful.

In many societies, nakedness is used as a form of protest. For example, formal wear in Sunday church was carefully graduated amongst 17th-Century New England Puritans, with the richest, most gloriously-clothed people in the front, and simple, poorly-clad farmers way in the back. The Quakers, upon finding themselves in this (objectionable) society, would sometimes show up to church stark naked. Even as late as 1967, a village of Ukranian Baptists living in Canada protested their displacement by the construction of a dam by angrily going naked in the streets.

Hippies, yippies, and other countercultural folks sometimes used nakedness as a form of protest - indeed, latter-day flower children, like my friend Kashi, protested ordinances about public nudity in Humboldt as recently as - what? - eight years ago? - by going bare-breasted in the streets of that northern California coastal town. Got her picture in the local paper too (with a strategically-placed banner headline across the photo).

Nakedness is easier in California than in most places (like Buffalo, NY, the setting for "The Full Monty").

The protest urge of nakedness is greatly-sublimated in modern society, but when coupled to commerce (stripping), fame (streaking), or daring celebrity (Superbowl wardrobe malfunctions) sometimes squeaks out anyway. "The Full Monty" is a perfect expression of the impulse to go naked, in order to make a point, about the dignity of work, and the human body.

This is the only show I've heard of that has a gallows-humor musical number, 'Big-Ass Rock,' all about suicide. I found the humor quite disturbing, even upsetting - certainly more upsetting than 'Little Priest' from Sweeney Todd, since we are all more likely to be afflicted by suicide than by gamey 19th-Century meat pies. I thought about yanking down my pants and going naked in protest, standing motionless in grim stolidity in the aisle, but I was afraid that one of RSP's trademark dance routines would erupt, as they often do, in the aisles, and I wasn't going to endanger my Johnson amongst all the flying elbows and kicking feet, just to make Bob Baxter laugh and make all my friends cry.

You know, if you live long enough, you see many things. In a lifetime, you might see a dozen or more lunar eclipses. If you travel, or live in the right place, you might even see a total solar eclipse. But it wasn't until today that I saw Michael R.J. Campbell in a G-String. Big guy (plus little G-String) equals Big Visual Impact! Like I say, if you live long enough, you see many things (now I can die).