Shucked, A New Musical Comedy performed out of the Nederlander Theatre in New York City, has received lots of acclaim, including 9 tony nominations (notably Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Original Score.) The production opened March 8th, and has not yet announced a closing date.
Story Summary
Shucked’s story centers around Cobb County: a small community of corn farmers, generationally self-isolated from the outside world. They center their lives around corn, and are said to be bible loving, farming focused individuals. The conflict of the plot is driven by the discovery that the corn in the town has started to turn blue (the negative effects of blue corn are never mentioned.) Social life, or at least the marriage between the protagonist and her fiancé, is put on hold in Cobb County until the ‘blue corn’ dilemma can be sorted out.
Maizy, aforementioned protagonist, an innocent but determined corn farmer, decides to push against the isolationist traditions of Cobb County, and her stubborn fiancé, Beau, so that she may attempt to save the town. She leaves the city to seek help from the outside, and immediately finds herself in Tampa, Florida. Alongside experiencing drugs and city life for the first time, it’s in Tampa that Maizy meets Gordy: a flirtatious con man and an outcast of his family full of successful con-ners. Gordy, seeking wealth and refuge from threatening mobsters, learns of valuable rocks under Maizy’s house. He plays the role of a “Corn Doctor”, seducing her and offering to help fix the town's corn problem, all the while planning to rob the precious rocks.
Maizy returns with Gordy to Cobb County, and when Beau learns of a shared kiss between the two, their engagement and relationship is cut off. Gordy, after meeting Maizy’s cousin Lulu and learning of her embraced independence, begins work on his rock stealing scheme. After a few failed attempts to steal the rocks, and a run-in with Beau, Gordy receives two phone calls (with spotty service, but only on Gordy’s side), where he misinterprets news that would have informed him that he no longer is in trouble with the mob, and that the rocks are not actually of any value.
Then, Beau, his brother, Peanut, and Maizy’s cousin, Lulu, reveal that they all spied on said phone calls, and they team up to accuse Gordy of his fraud. However, in their attempt to convince Maizy of Gordy’s chicanery, Gordy doubles down on his seduction of Maizy, and turns her against the three. Act One ends with Gordy tricking Maizy and the others in the town into believing he has found a solution for their blue corn issues.
This was all I witnessed of the Musical Comedy Shucked, as I chose to leave the show at intermission.
Review
Shucked’s book, written by Robert Horn, freely and intentionally breaks the context of action, the truth of the dire situation, the flow of the story, and the logical world of the play in so long as it results in getting a laugh from the audience. The structure of the script is centered entirely around moving from one punchline to the next in as few seconds as possible, while still maintaining the remote semblance of a story. This translated into continued instances of halting all action in the show to deliver improv and stand-up adjacent routines. Horn’s book strayed far from relatable and specific truth, relying instead on running over character development and experience to produce a punchline every seven seconds. Although successful in engendering laughs, these choices lacked a core of heart, truth, and compassion for human beings in life changing, stressful situations, but eye opening situations.
The Music and Lyrics written by Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, suffered from many of the same issues as Horn’s book. In what seemed to be a de-evolution of the musical theater song, the songs of Shucked were structurally predictable, lacking plot, and emotionally unnecessary in the show. Although able to legibly convey the characters thoughts, emotions, and actions, at times, every song in the show suffered from peddling, unnecessary rhymes, and deviations from storytelling for quick jokes. The score relied entirely on the powerhouse voices of the actors, and otherwise had no draw or intrigue in its approach to storytelling. Similarly to how Horn’s book would deviate from the action for a laugh, Clark and McAnally’s songs would deviate from the action to repeat a character's feelings in a new key, or with a different rhyme. This heavily contributed to why the music and lyrics felt like a devolution: story and action were sacrificed for vocal virtuosity and emotional expression (for the sake of emotional expression) - seeming to give a voice to all the characters that said “I can sing and rhyme while doing it - so I shall.”
It is now not surprising to mention that the cohesion of the book and score were nonexistent, and left the viewer constantly confused about the need for song and the need for script. In a well constructed musical, and in Shakespeare (among many other mediums and writers), heightened text, either song or soliloquy or…, is born out of the emotional need for a poetic or impassioned form of expression; for the character, there is simply no other option of lesser expression. In Shucked, small personal arguments were all a character needed to burst into a key-changing, bring-the-house-down, power ballad about the empowerment of being single. The placement of songs in the story was confusing, and only seemed to come either when an easy ‘I Want’ song could be shuffled in, or they just wanted to show off the singing chops of a particular performer. The book and score of Shucked embody the ‘comedic motto’ mentioned by playwright Horn in his bio: “always leave them wanting.” That it certainly did.
The bright side of Shucked is found in the performances of the actors. The incredible comedic timing of Caroline Innerbichler (Maizy), Kevin Cahoon (Peanut), and John Behlmann (Gordy), were exciting and engaging to watch. These actors were able to live inside a world of non-sequiturs and logically inconsistent characters, and nailed joke after joke in unassuming performances. While still holding their own comedically, vocally, Andrew Durand (Beau) and Ashley D. Kelley (Lulu) delivered incredibly clear, supported, rich performances - to which Ashley received a long ovation for. The direction was simple but effective in the production of spacing for the jokes, and the overall design of the show worked well in conveying the locations of the stories (Especially of note are some beautiful turning “Tampa” letters/cornrows that make for clear and efficient use of space and resources.) At times the lighting of songs felt similar to that of a pop show, changing color washes at the start of a new 16 bar phrase, or at a key change. However, it is hard to imagine a different approach to lighting songs of this nature.
Conclusion and Importance
If you have the money, and are looking for a turn-your-brain-off performance from great actors, Shucked is right for you. If you are looking for anything else (story, emotional connection, truth, compassion, logic, creativity, questions) then do not spend your time and energy to see Shucked. Comedy, including the comedy musical, holds a unique power in the storytelling world. As in all comedies, the comedy musical has the opportunity to tackle highly contentious topics while avoiding realms of shame and blame. It is disappointing to imagine the Shucked that could have been a compassionate look at a clashing of small town isolation with the mainstream culture of the cities, and know that instead we received a punch-line producing machine.
I don’t mean to pin the final form of Shucked entirely on the writers. Although I am inexperienced in the world of producing new work, I assume that the producers and investors had an influence on the final product of Shucked. The responsibility of art making does not ever fall solely on the director, writer, or actors. The theater, producer, investors, production team, and audience are all vital in making any performance, script old or new. So when a production has this level of Broadway resources and attention, theater goers and makers must hold that art to a higher standard. One that works to actively combat growing loneliness, mental health issues, and social divisions that have placed our country in a frightening situation. That is why Shucked receiving acclaim and attention should concern you - not because it does what it does poorly - but because it takes space from art that could ask provoking questions to the wide reaching audience of Broadway.
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