January 23, 2004 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 11

evening'sout

Let it all hang out

Musical version of The Full Monty highlights two men's relationship

by Kaizaad Kotwal

Cincinnati-The Full Monty, which a few years ago was an independent hit film from England, has been transformed into a Broadway musical that soon will drop trou in Cincinnati.

The film got four Oscar nominations in 1997, and in 2001 the stage version got ten Tony nominations. Four-time Tony Award winner Terrence McNally scripted the book for the musical. The out writer also created such gay classics as Love! Valor! Compassion! and Corpus Christi.

McNally took the original setting of the film, Sheffield, England, and moved it to Buffalo, New York. Both are mid-sized bluecollar towns, but he felt that audiences here could relate better to an American setting.

The story is the same, but with songs thrown in. Six unemployed steelworkers want to raise some money for a friend in need. When a local male strip show becomes a huge hit with women, these average Joes decide that they can cash in on the trend to go full monty.

McNally made one other change to the story. In the original film there is a gay subplot involving two of the dancers. Here, McNally has increased the importance of the two queer characters, Malcolm and Ethan.

Stephen DeBruyne, who plays Malcolm in the show, spoke about what it's like to let it all hang out, literally and emotionally, in this funny yet touching musical.

This is the first Broadway tour for this graduate of the prestigious Academy of Musical and Dramatic Arts in New York, where he studied musical theatre. At 23, DeBruyne has lived in Ontario and Michigan most of his life.

"I absolutely love it," DeBruyne said of touring. "I get to see all these places that I might not normally get to and being out with this great group of people is all in all a great existence."

De Bruyne also knows that finding work in this cutthroat business is blessed. Currently he has plans on staying with The Full Monty till June of 2005.

In the musical, Malcolm and Ethan are

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running in their underwear from the police who have raided a dress rehearsal. They fall into Malcolm's bedroom and in this moment of forced intimacy they realize that there are feelings underneath it all that they weren't aware of.

"They are simply lonely," DeBruyne said of Malcolm and Ethan, "and they each meet a soulmate and have all these feelings come out."

This soft and tender gay romance is complicated by the lead character Jerry, who seems to have certain issues about sexuality, stripping for women, and his general unfamiliarity with gay men. Through the course of the musical, Jerry's view changes as he realizes, "It's not about being gay or straight, but it's about being happy."

DeBruyne said that he was "nervous at first about the nudity" because he had never done that before.

"Actually, that is an issue in the show," he said when asked if he is secure with his body image, "because these guys aren't perfect. Even the men who come see the musical will get a kick out of it because we are all the average American males. There is a ten minute long scene in the musical where these guys are in their underwear and it deals with the insecurity that these guys have with themselves and their bodies."

Debruyne found that the nudity got easier as he got more and more into his character. "The nudity actually becomes a costume," he explained.

"Nothing about the nudity is sleazy," he said. Even at the end, when the men drop everything, including the hats covering their gems, the lighting is such that it allows the audience to see whatever it is they think they have seen.

When asked whether his parents had seen him strip, he answered, "Yes, and it wasn't so bad. I don't know how it was for them."

De Bruyne said that he has a newfound respect for people who strip for a profession because "it takes a lot of guts." This actor, however, has found that stripping has helped him get more comfortable in his own skin. "Putting it all out there night after night," he

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Troy Scarborough, Patrick Cogan, Eric Thorne (kneeling), Jeremiah Zinger, Joe Coots and Steve DeBruyne, left to right, in a

said, "it just becomes more and more okay.” Are the men in the show, like gay and straight men everywhere, concerned about their size?

"Yes," DeBruyne confessed, "and in the musical that prize goes to Ethan."

Returning to the relationship between Malcolm and Ethan on stage, DeBruyne said, "It is the most stable of any of the relationships in the story." Perhaps if a playwright other than the gay McNally had written it, this might not have been so, he thinks.

scene from The Full Monty.

In the future, DeBruyne wants to be on Broadway itself, a dream he has "had since tenth grade in high school."

"This is a great stepping stone but I always want it to be bigger and better." In this regard, being a size queen is a good thing!

The Full Monty will be playing at the Procter and Gamble Hall of the Aronoff Center for the Arts through February 1. Tickets are available by calling 513-241-2345 or logging onto www.cincinnatiarts.org.

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