No musical in living memory, or at least since “The Producers,” has been more stacked with one-liners than “Shucked,” the wacky new Broadway show now playing in downtown Chicago on its first national tour. Robert Horn, the book writer, at some point decided that the rule that jokes need to relate to the content of the show was, well, who cares when your whole show is about sweetcorn?
So Horn simply rolled out the gags as through all the inhabitants of Cobb County were joke writers competing with Bruce Vilanch to write gags for the Oscars. Horn is very, very good at what he does. For those who saw this show on Broadway, one of the palpable pleasures of “Shucked” at Wednesday night’s Chicago opening was witnessing how his one-liners ripple through an audience as people get the punchline at different moments. Certain pockets of the theater were convulsing all night, even as a few repressed stiffs sat there stone-faced at hilarious non-sequiturs (“Like they said at the funeral for Mr. Nice Guy … no more Mr. Nice Guy”) as if an order at DeKalb’s Corn Fest had been served without salt and butter. I stared at one such visage in the semi-darkness, waiting for a smile to appear. It took until halfway through Act 1, but it did. “Shucked” even shucks the non-believers, given time.
What is the show about? Two self-aware storytellers (Tyler Joseph Ellis and Maya Lagerstam) take us to a remote, rural town in fictional Cobb County where the corn isn’t growing properly and a local kissin’ couple, Maizy (Danielle Wade) and Beau (Jake Odmark, presumably cast for his name) are fighting even though they are clearly meant for each other. Annoyed that her Beau doesn’t sufficiently respect her, Maizy leaves the town’s borders, a radical thing to do, and heads to the Emerald City, here otherwise known as Tampa, where she meets an alternate lover, Gordy (Quinn VanAntwerp; see what I mean?), a slimy con artist who returns to Cobb County with Maizy purportedly to fix the ailing corn. So ensconced, Gordy meets another local character, a moonshiner named Lulu (Miki Abraham).
There is about as much narrative tension as the fourth quarter of a Chicago Bears game but that’s not the point. “Shucked” is a show with both lots of jokes (“As the personal trainer said to their lazy client, this isn’t working out”) and an endearing patina to boot.
It arrived on Broadway right after the pandemic, when there was a lot of condescension going on towards non-urban America, and both Horn and the show’s veteran director, Jack O’Brien, were on a mission to bring all kinds of people together for a good laugh and gently chide those Manhattan sophisticates for not seeing the heart in the Heartland. I remember “Shucked” felt like a strange tenant for New York’s Nederlander Theatre but it will sit more easily in East Lansing, Michigan, and Des Moines, Iowa, its next destinations. Hope the cast is stocking up on their urban fun in Chicago to prepare for those locales in winter.
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On stage, the touring cast is a total blast, frankly. I’ve been following the under-appreciated Wade’s career a bit (she was terrific in both “Summer Stock” at Goodspeed in Connecticut and in “The Music Man” in Canada’s Stratford) and I’d say she’s more than ready for a big Broadway lead, being the kind of vocalist who has such technical proficiency, she can then entertain herself by shading what in this case is a fun, country-fueled score from Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally.
Wade has perfected her Sevierville accent and her dead-serious Maizy feels like part Dolly Parton, part Jessie Mueller and part Judy Garland, a fine cocktail with a Tennessee twist. Wade is such a great singer that she’s reason enough to attend. Better yet, her two dudes offer fine support, the storytellers are chirpy and chippy, and Abraham, playing the resident diva of Cobb County, does all anyone could reasonably ask.
“Shucked” has a big, beating heart and I liked it more on a second viewing, dedicated as it is to bringing people together As they say in the show, “family is telling someone to go to hell and then hoping that they get there safely.”
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
Review: “Shucked” (3.5 stars)
When: Through Jan. 19
Where: CIBC Theatre, 19 W. Monroe St.
Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes
Tickets: $31.50-$171.50 at www.broadwayinchicago.com
