The Welk Resorts Theatre took something of a risk in presenting The Full Monty. On the surface, a gritty show about desperate unemployed factory workers, with much adult language and some male nudity doesn’t seem to be a natural fit with the Welk Resorts Theatre’s tradition of family entertainment. But, there’s a lot of family values present in David Yazbek and Terrance McNally’s musical and the Welk Production both celebrates those and provides just enough naughtiness to rile up the audience, in a pleasant way, of course.

Logo courtesy Welk Resorts Theatre

If you managed to miss all of the British film that served as source material, the original Old Globe production or the tour that came through a few years back, you’ll need to know that the title refers to full frontal male nudity. That’s what a group of unemployed men decide that they have to do in order to earn the money they need to put their lives back on track.

Many of the men face issues of how to define their masculinity. Jerry (Timothy Quinlan) has lost his wife, Pam (Sabrina Miller), to a wealthier man (Teddy, played by Cory Bretsch). Pam is also petitioning for sole custody of the couple’s son, Nathan (Aidan Hayek), on the grounds that Jerry is behind in his child support. Nick (TJ Dawson) has issues with being fat and refuses to be intimate with his wife, Georgie (Nicole Winter). Malcolm (Jeffrey Scott Parsons) is being dominated by his invalid mother, and Harold (Nick Santa Maria) hasn’t told his gold-digging wife, Vicki (Stacy Huntington) that he is unemployed.

Once the men have been introduced, The Full Monty could have contented itself with a “let’s put on a show” plot, and at one level it does. Auditions yield some comic characters: the well-endowed Ethan (Joshua David McKinney), the presumably well-endowed Horse (Rovin Jay), and Jeanette (Cissy King), the mouthy rehearsal pianist, “who just appeared, piano and all.” But, even these characters ultimately help Mr. McNally to explore alternative masculinities and to show how these different ideas can not only co-exist but thrive. By allowing the audience to identify with these characters and their struggles, the idea of taking off their clothes becomes more palatable.

Mr. Yazbec’s jazzy score is sophisticated and difficult to sing (and play, if you’re in the pit). It also provides a good deal of its own humor, energizes scenes that might bog down, and in the case of the love song, “You Walk With Me,” surprises.

Nick Degruccio’s production, with choreography by Ray Limon and music direction by Justin Gray, mostly gets what Mr. McNally is after, though circumstances beyond his control make some of these assessments difficult. Jayson Elliott, who was scheduled to play Dave, was injured close to opening night, and Mr. Dawson was hired to replace him. The opening was postponed for two days, during which Mr. Dawson, who was not otherwise in the cast, must have rehearsed intensively. At Sunday afternoon’s press performance, Mr. Dawson began somewhat hesitantly, both in terms of his lines and his singing. He gained confidence as the performance progressed, and everyone on stage (and in the audience) seemed to be having a great time by the end.

I have to hand it to Mr. Degruccio, though. Despite the Welk’s worries about offending its audiences’ sensibilities (and the Welk hedged its bets by putting Ms. King, a beloved star of the long-running Lawrence Welk television show, into the cast), he only wimped out once. He put a male stripper (Jackson Tobiska) onstage doing his thing at the top of the show (and Mr. Tobiska’s moves made it seem as though he had some prior experience), and he didn’t wince when the script called for the stripper to reveal that he was gay. I guess he took a few F-bombs out of the script, but there was plenty of other language. The only place he flinched was in handling the gay romance subplot. I don’t think that he needed to gloss it over. After all, it was one of the different masculinities that Mr. McNally’s book was celebrating.

Besides Mr. Dawson, there was some unevenness in the performances of the large cast, mostly in the secondary roles. There was considerable heroism, however, in keeping the show going when things faltered. Ms. King, in particular, proved herself to be a real trouper, single-handedly rescuing a couple of scenes with wisecracks, some of which seemed to be ad-libbed.

The technical part of the show was also a bit rough at the opening performance (but, it’s a difficult show to do, with quite a few set changes that had to be handled manually by cast and crew members). I imagine that these elements will also run more smoothly as things progress. Please, Mr. Sound Designer Patrick Hoyny, figure out some better balances between the band and the singers, however.

The Full Monty runs through October 17. The Welk has a mostly-matinee schedule (the only evening performances are on Thursdays and Saturdays), so be careful when purchasing tickets.

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