Shucked Broadway Reviews

While the lyrics sometimes lack the rigor of the best Broadway songwriting—the word “Tampa” is forced into shotgun rhymes with “camera,” “plasma” and “extravaganza”—the songs mostly hit the spot, and the show knows how to sell them. Director Jack O’Brien and choreographer Sarah O’Gleby set the show’s winking tone in an opening number that nods to Michael Bennett and Tommy Tune, and roll out the barrels later on for the Seven Brides for Seven Brothers–style showstopper “The Best Man Wins.” Innerbichler acts and sings with winsome lucidity, and the limber-voiced Durant scores with Beau’s hurt-but-defiant “Somebody Will.” But Newell ignites the show’s real barn burner: “Independently Owned,” in which hooch mama Lulu declares her autonomy and Newell, as in Once on This Island, soars to stratospheric vocal heights with unperturbed poise. (When I saw the show, the song earned a partial standing ovation in the middle of Act I.) The show’s most valuable player, however, is book writer Robert Horn, who won a Tony for his similar Tootsie role and who stuffs Shucked’s script with laugh-out-loud puns and one-liners.

How many jokes—really good jokes, really good funny jokes, really good terrible jokes, really excellent silly jokes—can you stuff into a Broadway musical? In Shucked (Nederlander Theatre, booking to Sept 3), they are deliciously relentless. Accompanying their shameless deployment—Robert Horn is responsible for the musical’s hilarious book—are Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally’s songs, which are not only just as funny as the jokes but also immediately hummable ear-worms.

The Southern comfort show, with a tuneful country score by Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally and a superb book by Robert Horn, is just so damn funny. If any of the outrageous yokel characters open their mouths to do anything but sing, 99% of the time they will deliver a winning joke or pun. The receptive audience sits in a state of perpetual giggle, with heads bobbing up and down like buoys.

The riotous new work, with a book by Robert Horn, nabs acoustic inspiration from country music and tonal humor from shows like “The Book of Mormon” and “Tootsie” (the latter of which Horn adapted for stage) to form a delirious production that treats a seasonal crop — corn — more like the second coming. And while it’s nearly guaranteed that you will exit the Nederlander Theatre with no recollection of Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally’s banjo-slinging score or Horn’s tepid excuse for an empowering message, you will leave lighter — levied by this production’s astute self-awareness, hilarious cast and relentless commitment to the corn.

What’s it about? Well, there’s Peanut (Kevin Cahoon, nailing each of his lines) hanging around, and Beau (Andrew Durand) moping about, and newcomer Gordy (John Behlmann), taking mysterious calls. Director Jack O’Brien doesn’t have to shake his bag of characters too roughly to bring out the salt and pepper from this joyous show with zero illusions about its aims and ambitions. Shucked is about as quick and easy a good time can be had on Broadway: accessible, unpretentious and, I’ll be damned, a whole lot of fun.

Director Jack O’Brien orchestrates the proceedings with endless imagination and precise comic staging that accentuates the show’s strengths while downplaying its weaknesses. Thanks to the outstanding efforts of all concerned, Shucked feels as light and airy as Scott Pask’s beautiful set design of a huge, multi-level wooden barn.

Storytellers have long looked to cornfields for ideas. Field of Dreams turned them into heaven. Evil lurked amid the rows in Children of the Corn. Now, in the deliriously dopey countrified musical comedy Shucked, corn is cause for nonstop funny business — and some terrifically catchy tunes. Credit the creative team for recognizing there’s more than a kernel of truth in the adage about knowing oneself. They are fully aware their show is wall-to-wall silliness, and they embrace that concept whole-hog. Even when the goings turn sappy, another pun, punchline, or double entendre awaits. Do the jokes yield diminishing returns over the show’s two hours? Yep, they do. But are you apt to have such a good time that you won’t mind? Yep, you will.

Consider that pedigree for a moment: Horn won a Tony for 2019’s Tootsie, and has written for Dame Edna, Designing Women, Bette Midler and RuPaul. Clark and McAnally have stacked up a big barnful of CMA Awards, Grammys and country music hits. Together this trio is a match made in some bizarro Broadway cornfield of dreams, and if the rapid-fire aw-shucked jokes elicit groans almost as often as laughs, the ratio can’t dampen the high spirits and goofy charm.

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.

Only one of Peanut’s three jokes in that particular line works for me (about the China), and I’d say that’s more or less the average for the whole show: About one-third of the jokes land — and most (like Peanut’s) come out of nowhere, having nothing to do with the story or its characters. But that’s a whole lot of jokes! Indeed, the barrage of jokes dominates “Shucked.” They hit the spot more often than the score by successful country music songwriters Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, which I found memorable precisely once, in the rousing showstopper “Independently Owned,” by Alex Newell, who portrays Lulu, the town’s maker of moonshine. The jokes as a whole are far more engaging than the plot, which is a thin concoction with hints of “The Music Man,” “Urinetown,” and “L’il Abner.”

It's too soon to tell if Shucked has staying power as a Broadway musical, but its refreshing embrace of diversity and unapologetically corny sincerity can definitely put a smile on your face.

Being exposed to Horn’s masterful pun demonstration comes close to equaling the price of Shucked admission, but what about the rest of it? Slightly less of a recommendation – with a caveat: Jack O’Brien’s direction. For this production, which prides itself in being as corny as Cob County, O’Brien imbues the production with rat-a-tat style that not only knocks your socks off but blows your mind. The knocking and blowing are enhanced by Scott Pask’s set of a large, slatted barn with occasional corn rows sliding on. Japhy Weideman’s lighting and John Shivers’ sound help a bushel, too.

At their most amusing, Clark and McAnally have more in common with the gentle humor of Meredith Willson than the far more rambunctious nonsense that Horn delivers. This constant switching of gears between the songs and the joke-filled dialogue slows down the narrative, making “Shucked” seem a lot longer than its two and twenty minutes with intermission. There’s also a pair of narrators (Grey Henson and Ashley D. Kelley) who are somewhat less adorable than they think they are.

Given the fact that “Shucked” is directed by no less than Jack O’Brien (one of the country’s most versatile and respected directors, whose many credits include Shakespeare, Stoppard, and “Hairspray”), one would think that there would have been more to “Shucked.” One could try to read into it as a parable of community, commitment, tolerance, and so on, but “Shucked” is really just a lightweight and laborious attempt at resurrecting old-fashioned musical comedy with a country flavor and corn as high as an elephant’s eye.

But Shucked’s power, should it work on you, is in its impressively consistent stream of puns, slow-burn wordplays and PG-13 jokes. The cast’s comedic timing is near universally excellent, though I detected a shadow of a shrug, a hope that you’ll laugh and not groan at the base-aiming humor. Which is not my style, though I seemed to be in the minority. The audience at the matinee I attended laughed throughout, sometimes uproariously and with surprise. I’m not the buyer of this particular variety, but corn sells – which, in the name of an original musical, is something to root for.

What happens when the crops in Corn Cob County stop growing? Apparently, folks develop a GMO-modified sense of humor and start singin’ wistful melodies and rousing country anthems. Shucked features music and lyrics by the high-profile (and queer) country songwriting team of Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, but Robert Horn’s (Tootsie) book, heavy with one-liners and not much else, fails to harvest the potential of the talented cast. Those willing to spend triple digits for one knock-out song can at least witness Alex Newell (Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, Glee) bring audiences to their feet in the upward-modulating barn-raiser “Independently Owned.”

If they gave out Tony Awards for the most mismatched book and score, “Shucked!” would slay all other contenders. In essence, you get a couple of hours of Horn’s signature howlers interspersed with a country-pop-vibed score by Brandy Clark and Shane McNally. Of limited ambition, it offers a little suite of accessible ballads and specialty numbers. And there are no bravura production numbers in Jack O’Brien’s staging (well, save for a barrel-rolling one in Act 2). This is a far more modest affair and O’Brien, a wily old hand at all this stuff, just concentrates on making the punters in the orchestra giggle. And no one who has experienced “Shucked!” in a full house could argue that he is anything less than successful in that endeavor. Talk about paradise for the post-Red Lobster crowd, cheerfully over-served.

Let me stress, there’s much to enjoy—even as the fun wears thin as corn silk. Previous spooficals that Shucked brings to mind make for unflattering comparisons: Urinetown had more bite, The Prom had more heart and The Book of Mormon has bigger laughs. Shorn from its earwormy songs and bubbly ensemble, Shucked tends to fade. Unlike the corn you ate the night before, it doesn’t stick around to remind you.

Still, with all its fake unsophistication, “Shucked” is what we’ve got, and in a Broadway musical season highlighted by an antisemitic lynching, a murderous barber and a dying 16-year-old, some amusing counter-programming is probably healthy. You may even find its final moment moving, as the paradox of separation and inclusion is resolved in a lovely flash. Just don’t expect intellectual nourishment; forgive me, I’m breaking my promise, but it’s mostly empty calories you’ll find in this sweet, down-market cornucopia.