Saturday, Aug 30, 2008
But before those other projects move forward, perhaps they should take a few cues from Law, who has made a number of shrewd moves to ensure that the new "Monty" lives up to the original. First, he has refused to take in any producing partners -- a rarity these days, when most Broadway shows are top heavy with corporate investors.
"Normally, when a studio licenses a show to a Broadway producer, it loses control. But we didn't want to do anything that would damage the film's name," says Law. And so he took the lead in developing the show himself -- leaving Searchlight in January to work on it full time -- and Fox agreed to shoulder the costs, which are expected to reach $7 million, twice the movie's budget, by the time the show reaches Manhattan.
Second, Law forswore the easy "Saturday Night Fever" route of merely replicating the original's songs in the stage version. "Simply duplicating the movie didn't seem a very exciting choice," he says. "That just exploits the title, but to what end? You really need to give audiences something new and different or I don't think the stage version can be assured a long life of its own." With theater vets such as director Jack O'Brien (artistic director at the Old Globe, where he first mounted the '94 Broadway revival of "Damn Yankees") and playwright Terrence McNally (who wrote the adaptations for "Kiss of the Spider Woman" and "Ragtime") on board, the decision was made to transfer the lads in "The Full Monty" from unemployment lines in Sheffield, England, to Buffalo, N.Y.
But Law's riskiest decision was signing first-time Broadway composer David Yazbeck (whose previous credits range from "Late Night With David Letterman" to "Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?") to handle words and lyrics. "I remembered back to when I was in college and first saw [1968's] 'Promises, Promises,' with its music and lyrics by Burt Bacharach and Hal David," explains Law. "That was a new sound then, terrific and contemporary. It wasn't 'Climb Every Mountain.' A lot of people recommended David. He writes in quirky, different styles. He did a couple of songs on spec -- and that was it."
After too many years of stentorian sung-through musicals -- from "Les Miz" to "Jekyll & Hyde" -- Yazbeck's clever tunes are refreshingly unpretentious. (He even works casually dropped four-letter words into the lyrics.) The first-act curtain number "Michael Jordan's Ball" allows the struggling lads to discover their inner stripper as they mimic the basketball ace's moves on the court; the second act opens with a classic Broadway showstopper, "Jeanette's Blues," as veteran character actress Kathleen Freeman (who has racked up supporting parts in 124 features and 60 TV shows), playing the boys' piano player, belts out a lament for the bum showbiz acts she has seen in her time. Yazbeck's score even includes a mock love song a man sings to his oversize stomach.
With just a few exceptions -- like Andrew De Shields of "The Wiz" and "Ain't Misbehavin'" -- the "Monty" cast is made up of relative unknowns. But that hardly matters. The show's title is its star, and once a few needed nips and tucks are performed before the show takes the bow in New York, "Monty" should deliver the goods.
And exactly how full is this "Monty"? The stage cast goes further than their movie counterparts, revealing all in a final, full-frontal flash -- though, to be fair, some tricky stagecraft obscures the view. Even so, that certainly rates as one gimmick no movie-to-stage adaptation has yet attempted.
If nothing else, the new "Full Monty" may go down in history as the first musical in which the players deliberately lost their shirts.
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