Li’l Abner crossed with The Music Man, with a splash of the drought in Urinetown, Shucked concerns itself with the collision of a bunch of needy “hicks,” as we used to derisively call them, and a city slicker who’s either shady, a savior, or both. This is potentially treacherous territory, because some of today’s “hicks” might be MAGAs, so the show wisely situates itself sometime in the past to avoid a mind-numbing evening spent with characters who think JFK Jr. is still alive. But the result could still have been touchy, since big-shot creatives looking down at old-time rural characters might easily come off as arrogant as a Kardashian at a yard sale. To avert that scenario, Shucked (one of the worst titles in history, by the way) takes pains to point out that these folks might be simple, but they’re not necessarily stupid. They might routinely talk about goats getting married, but they also have dreams of their own. What’s more, Shucked aims to infuse these people with heart, an approach that steadily competes with all the deadpan humor and wisecracks on display, though by the end you’ve submitted to this weird “farm-to-fable” musical’s schizophrenically dopey sense of fun.
Welcome down south to the fictional Cob County — you heard me — which is not to be confused with Georgia’s Cobb County, though it sounds the same to the … ear. For years, the corn in Cob had flourished so fabulously that the “corn rows” provided a barricade around the town and no one ever came in, or left. But now, the soil is drying up, along with everyone’s goodwill, so it’s up to a spunky gal named … yep … Maizy (Caroline Innerbichler) to bolt out of town and head to the big city — Tampa, Florida — to try to enlist some help. There, she tracks down a corn doctor, Gordy (John Behlmann), who unfortunately turns out to be the wrong kind of corn doctor; he’s a podiatrist, and not even a real one at that. But since Gordy desperately needs to hide out from gangsters he owes money to, he joins Maizy on her return to Cob and ends up engaged to her, while attempting, Harold Hill–style, to make it look like he’s improving the crops. And somehow, he sort of does!
“Heck, if I had a crystal ball, I’d probably walk real different.”
The script, by Tony-winner Robert Horn (Tootsie), is festooned with a mixed bag of country tunes written by out queer Nashville songwriting duo Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally. As Maizy, Innerbichler has a perfect Reba McEntire–ish twang when she delivers a sort of meh mid-tempo tune about her craving to break out of isolation and find solutions (“I’m looking for a window, not a wall”). Alas, her beau, Beau (Andrew Durand), has trouble reckoning with the more enlightened woman who has come back to Cob, which gives Durand the chance to slay with a piercing wail of a ballad called “Somebody Will” (“If she don’t want me, well, somebody will”). Behlmann wisely minimizes his character’s sleaze factor, since Gordy, after all, admits he’s a “counterfeit cad” who has disappointed his family of proud sleazebags by not being better at being bad. (As he confesses in a song, “A disgrace to my family / Mocked by the mob / Cause I robbed a bank / That had already been robbed.”) And Kevin Cahoon is a hoot as Beau’s hillbilly brother Peanut, who blithely tosses off observations like “Heck, if I had a crystal ball, I’d probably walk real different” and “I just passed a huge squirrel, which is odd because I don’t remember eating one.”
A lot of the one-liners — particularly those said by the narrators, Storytellers 1 and 2 (Ashley D. Kelley and Grey Henson) — are enjoyable groaners of the type that used to populate that old country variety TV show Hee Haw. (That’s not surprising, since Shucked’s seed was first planted years ago when Horn tried to write a stage version of Hee Haw, before dropping that idea in favor of an original book musical.) There are too many of those lines (“Like the lazy dentist said, ‘Brace yourself’”) and too much self-congratulatory “Aren’t we clever?” narration, but at the finale, the storytellers (who started the show and have stayed onstage for much of it) reveal their own role in all this, and it’s … wait for it … corny, but cute. And they do manage to toss in some occasional contemporary commentary, randomly poking fun at the audience’s lack of diversity, the rewriting of American history, and right-wing opposition to Plan B.
The set is a big wooden barn that practically gives you splinters when you look at it.
Best of all (and a prime example of the diversity of the cast, at least) is Glee’s Alex Newell as Maizy’s cousin Lulu — a long story — who is always ready to puncture people’s malarkey with harsh truths. When sneaky Gordy professes his love for Maizy, Lulu bristles and exclaims, “It’s amazing how only 26 letters of the alphabet can produce so much bullshit.” The nonbinary Newell is funny and powerful in the role, with amazing pipes that are well applied to a showstopper called “Independently Owned” (“Don’t need a man for flatteries / I got a corn cob and some batteries”). Newell needs to star as Effie in a Dreamgirls revival as sure as Kacey Musgraves should be forced to down an energy drink. Of course, if you don’t think the independence-loving Lulu will end up with a man by the final curtain, then you’re probably naïve enough to believe that apocryphal story about how Broadway legend Carol Channing was once overheard to exclaim in a public restroom stall, “Corn? When did I eat corn?” (I’m surprised Shucked didn’t work that old chestnut into the script, though the opening number, “Corn,” does have the lyric “It’s the same goin’ in, comin’ out!”)
Scott Pask’s set is a big wooden barn that practically gives you splinters when you look at it, and three-time Tony-winning director Jack O’Brien (Hairspray) and choreographer Sarah O’Gleby keep things moving so you don’t stop and ponder too much about plot developments dealing with who kissed whom, not to mention a dumb bit about the dual sets of wedding vows being prepared. Kernels of wisdom like “Maybe love just needs a little love” are as cringeworthy as me saying “kernels,” but there’s plenty of badinage too, and the obsession with corn becomes kind of riveting, as if the characters from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! were just pretenders. So, is Shucked the product of “perfect hominy” (one of the show’s overabundance of puns)? Maybe not, but it definitely provides more of a window than a wall. ❖
Shucked
Nederlander Theatre
208 W 41st St
Michael Musto has written for the Voice since 1984, best known for his outspoken column “La Dolce Musto.” He has penned four books, and is streaming in docs on Netflix, Hulu, Vice, and Showtime.