Playwright: music & lyrics by David Yazbek, book by Terrence McNally
At: Drury Lane Theatre at Water Tower Place, 175 E. Chestnut St.
Phone: ( 312 ) 642-2000; $35-$48
Runs through: July 10
What's NOT to like about this show? Terrence McNally's book affirms gender equality, filial loyalty, male-bonding, economic enterprise, and good old all-American inventiveness. David Yazbek's playful score hasn't got a musical or lyrical cliché from overture to finale ( where else will you hear a fattie sing a love song to his own belly? ) . And director-choreographer Jim Corti returns to Chicago, bringing some of his BEST steps for this inaugural production in the renovated Drury Lane Theatre at Water Tower Place.
As in the 1997 film, the story concerns a group of laid-off factory hands enervated by idleness, boredom and dependency on the wives, sisters, mothers, and girlfriends whose service-sector jobs at the Mall now support their households. But when a divorced father's custody rights are threatened by his lapsed child-support payments, an idea glimmers. Before you can say 'Hey, let's put on a show!', he has persuaded his glum chums to transform themselves into the Chippendale-style boy-toys on whom the women spend their disposable income. There are setbacks to his scheme—as one of them scoffs, 'HE's too dumb, HE's too old, HE's too fat and you're ALL too ugly!'—but doncha know that everything ends happily, with the Hot Metal Dancers taking it ALL off in the display of priapal pride giving the play its title?
Moving the locale from the UK to contemporary Buffalo permits Yazbek to play with indigenous melodic styles—e.g. Motown in 'Big Black Man'—and Corti to choreograph a quasi-West Side Story basketball-based ensemble dance in 'Michael Jordan's Ball'. The poignant 'You Walk With Me' begins as a funeral eulogy to someone's mom, but finishes as a declaration of same-sex devotion. And let's not forget the two raucous girl-power anthems, 'It's A Woman's World' and 'The Goods'.
Peter James Zielinski leads the squad of blue-collar ecdysiasts, with Michael Lindner as his rotund sidekick, while Kelly Kunkel and Barbara Helms command the female troops. Stealing the show, however, is Renee Matthews, playing a rehearsal pianist whose seen-it-all commentary soon pulls laughs the instant she rises to speak. But even more impressive is the savvy exhibited by Michael Weber, Gary Griffin, and all the decision-makers who chose this play to herald their entrance to the burgeoning Michigan Avenue theater district.