Best friends help each other in tough times. Jerry Lukowski and Dave Bukatinsky are no different in “The Full Monty,” which is at the Wagon Wheel Center for the Arts Tuesday through Sept. 4. The musical is an Americanized version of the British film. “Jerry and Dave are best friends. They used to be workers at a steel mill that goes out of business. You don’t see that in the story. We sort of enter and see these two best friends deal with being out of a job and trying to scrounge money anyway they can,” explained Matthew Janisse, who plays Jerry. Scott Fuss, who plays Dave, added, “All the men who worked at the steel mill have been out of work for 18 months. So their wives have been forced to work or adapt any way they can and deal with that.” Janisse said the driving force of the show is that Jerry needs money to pay child support for his son, Nathan or he will lose joint custody. “So it’s all about his harebrained scheme to make money, which is to put on this strip number,” Janisse said. For Dave, being out of work for so long makes him insecure about his life, which causes him to be unable to relate to his wife, Georgie, emotionally, Fuss said. That starts manifesting itself in Dave’s relationship with her. “We need to solve that because otherwise she’ll leave me,” Fuss stated. In the show, Dave refers to himself as a “fat bastard.” Fuss said, “Dave is a heavier guy, and everyone, even if you aren’t heavy, has that insecurity. I think that’s a really great part of this story is that it’s riddled with having these insecurities – mentally, physically, being out of work, not having enough money, being too fat – and know how to overcome with the help of everybody because you realize that everybody has something that they feel less than great about.” One of the themes of the show is what it really means to be a man, Janisse said. “We start off thinking it’s the stereotypical macho ‘I need a job, I need to pay for my family.’ They sort of learn throughout their journey there’s all types of men, and if you don’t fit this picture, it doesn’t make you any less of a man. There are varying degrees of men and what manliness is,” Janisse explained. Fuss offered, “Jerry learns the most from his son, I would say, in a lot of sense.” Though some might think “The Full Monty” is for women, Fuss said he thinks of it as a “dude’s show.” “I think it’s all about male relationships, and female relationships, but I think the majority of it is about the six guys and what they really want and can help each other. I think it’s riddled with that,” Fuss said. “All the songs we sing are ‘Scrap,’ ‘Man.’ These are all about what we want and what we want to get, and I think it’s great. I think the music reflects that.” Terrence McNally wrote the book for “The Full Monty” and for “Ragtime.” The Wagon Wheel also brought “Ragtime to its stage this summer from June 29 to July 9. “I think really the writing is so realistic. This is stuff you’d hear on the streets of two people talking if they were going through this situation,” Janisse said. “It’s not Hayden, it’s not Shakespeare, it reads more like a play and less like a musical comedy.” He said the guys talk like real guys would talk and about issues they would discuss – being out of a job and how bad that sucks. As with most musicals, there is some dancing, though all but one or two of the characters aren’t great dancers. Pretending not to know how to be great dancers wasn’t hard for Fuss and Janisse. “I’m pretty good at being bad at dancing,” Janisse said as he and Fuss shared a laugh. “The good thing about the show is that it’s a guy’s show.” He said there’s a lot of different women in the show, who are strong women. As Jerry, Janisse said he has a lot of scenes with his ex-wife, Pam. “Because Jerry is so immature, he views her as this wall against seeing his son. Then throughout the show, as he grows, he starts to understand where that’s coming from a little bit more and realizes he needs to take some responsibility for his actions,” Janisse explained. There’s also Dave’s wife, Georgie, and the character of Harold has a hilarious wife, he said. “She’s boisterous and fun, but still has these moments of heart, which the show is full of,” Janisse said. Fuss classified “The Full Monty” as a serial comedy. He said it has a black comedy feel, and there’s tons of funny moments, even in some of the sad scenes. “I think it’s a very funny situation, and the guys certainly are full of humor, but there certainly are moments where that kind of fades away and it’s just real people dealing with some really difficult and emotional issues in their lives,” Fuss elaborated. Janisse pointed out that “The Full Monty” is the encore show. “Which is great because I do think this community does hunger for something that isn’t censored or dulled out. This is what real people sound like when they’re from New York. This is real city people. There’s foul language, because that’s how people really talk; there’s sexual suggestion, because there’s sexuality in our lives; but then there’s real heartbreaking moments like – it’s super funny, but losing your child because you can’t have money, that’s real life. This isn’t ‘Becky isn’t getting a date to the prom,’ this is ‘I’m losing my son, I’m losing my marriage.’ So the encore show, although with this show, though it has those raunchy moments of like whether we’re making innuendos about appendages upon a male, there’s appendages of the heart,” Janisse said. “Please insert that I rolled my eyes,” Fuss joked. By the time the show is over, Fuss said the audience will leave feeling good. “This is not ‘Magic Mike.’ This is not a Chippendales show. This is so much more than that,” he said. “People of all races, genders, lifestyles, come see it. It’s a story that everyone can identify with.” “Don’t be afraid of the encore show because with this slot, it’s really giving an opportunity to tell stories that might not be able to be told throughout the regular season. So this is always going to be a special show and this one particularly with the bunch of guys we have with our cast. It’s phenomenal. People are really going to love it. They’re going to be touched, they’re going to laugh and they’re going to walk away with songs in their heads,” Janisse said. “The Full Monty” is both Janisse’s and Fuss’s 18th show at the Wagon Wheel. For ticket information, visit the website at wagonwheelcenter.org
