Audience Reviews
The following are reviews submitted online by your fellow audience members ...

SHOW: The Full Monty, 2007

"When I first walked into the Hunger Artists’ Theater last Friday, there was a palpable tension in the air.  The thought of impending full-frontal male nudity was like a pall, and it hung heavy over the assembled spectators (Dare I say, “Voyeurs”?).  It took only one look at my fellow audience members to make it perfectly clear that everyone was thinking the same thing: “Is it really going to happen?”; “Will they wimp out and go to a blackout before I get my money shot?”; “Should I have brought more one dollar bills?”

Now I’m just as macho as the next guy, but I have to admit that, for the whole day leadig up to the show, I couldn’t stop thinking about the inevitable, creeping doom of seeing naked men that night.  More specifically, I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that those naked men were going to be friends of mine.  Now, despite what my high school gym teacher may have told you, the idea of seeing a bunch of sweaty, naked men gyrating on stage was NOT an exciting prospect for me. (I hate you Coach Ott!)

Anyway, when the houselights dimmed there was a murmur of excitement among the assembled theatergoers.  There was no turning back now!  T-minus two hours and thirty minutes to “pants-off” and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it!  I’m not a brave man but I was determined to see this through to the potentially bitter end.  I hunkered down and prepared for zero hour.

I’ll be honest when I say that I was completely unprepared for what happened next.  About halfway through the first big musical number, my (very reasonable) fear of prison shower flashbacks faded away and I found myself huming along!  It didn’t take very long for me to become completely immersed in the lives and minds of these characters.  They’re the kind of guys that you would meet in a bar and immediately like.  By the end of “Scrap” I had welcomed Jerry and Dave into my heart and I desperately wanted to buy them each a beer.

While much of this depth of character can be attributed to Terrence McNally’s superb book, it should be noted that the Hunger Artists really dig in and make these characters their own.  Every single actor in this cast brings something special to their role and it almost seems unfair to mention any one performance as being any better than the rest.  The Full Monty is undoubtedly an ensemble piece, and in twenty years of theatergoing I’ve never seen an ensemble as cohesive as this one.  Kudos to director Glendele Way-Agle for her amazing direction and for fostering the kind of atmosphere in which this cohesiveness could thrive.  

The bottom line here is that this production of Full Monty grabs you y the tearaway pants and doesn’t let you go.  It is the perfect combination of an excellent script, excellent performance and excellent direction.  It’s the kind of magical mixture that doesn’t come along very often and I’m grateful to the Hunger Artists Theater company for bringing me along for the ride.

And for the record, I’d like to say that by the final scene I was screaming in my seat, begging six men I hardly knew to “take it all off”.  

But if you tell anyone that, I’ll deny it."

- Sheldon 7/20/07