The Full Monty delivers one promise

If you're wondering whether Raleigh Little Theatre means what it says in offering "The Full Monty" as its musical kickoff to summer, I can assure you it does.

The popular Broadway musical about unemployed steelworkers in Buffalo staging a strip show for quick cash ends with the workers buck naked on stage -- that's what the show's title means. The big reveal is backlit, so you can't discern much more than silhouettes of G-strings being whipped off. But hats off -- or boxers off? -- to the actors for being brave enough to bare their booties to friends and neighbors in the audience.

Still, the show's pacing was sluggish opening weekend, and although the women were strong, some of the steelworker actors were evidently cast more for their immodesty than their vocal chops. So I couldn't help but root for a high-octane fluke like the one that happened when I saw "Monty" on Broadway in 2001. That night the lighting cues failed, leaving the naked actors fully illuminated at show's end.

That's what I call truth in advertising.