STAGE WEST: "Shucked" presented by Broadway San Diego

Love in the cornfields between Beau and Maizy.       Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

            The seed of Robert Horn’s musical comedy “Shucked” was planted 10 years ago with a show titled “Moonshine: That Hee Haw Musical.” An homage to the corny “Hee Haw” television series that began in the late ‘60s and seemingly endured forever in syndication, “Moonshine” featured music and lyrics by Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally. Its heroine was spunky Misty Mae of Kornfield Kounty.
            From “Moonshine” came “Shucked,” which retains only two songs from its predecessor (and only one character). Misty Mae became Maizy and Kornfield Kounty became Cob County. The inspiration from “Hee Haw” remains.
            I remember thinking “WTF?” when the great Jack O’Brien told me a couple of years ago, during an interview promoting his new book, about this new show he was directing in Salt Lake City for Pioneer Theatre Company. He was optimistic about this musical tale of folks who grow corn for a livelihood getting a Broadway engagement.
            So it did, running at the Nederlander Theatre in New York for nearly a year and earning nine Tony nominations. I shouldn’t have been surprised – O’Brien knows more about theater than I ever will.
            Perhaps if not for Jack O’Brien I wouldn’t have been at all interested in seeing “Shucked” as it arrives in San Diego on its current national tour. But there I was, at the Civic Theatre, not at all certain what to expect.
            What I got and what you’ll get is a sort of soft-R-rated “Hee Haw”: lots and lots and lots of puns and jokes with punchlines you can see coming a cornfield away; humor that draws heavily on the sex-related, the toilet-related and whatever groans can be elicited from either area. The characters are best personified by Peanut (Mike Nappi), who’s given far more than enough time than is warranted to crack these jokes with deadpan doltery, almost as if George “Goober” Lindsey were reincarnated from the old TV show.
            Now there is a story, a thin one. The simple (simple, not stupid, it is emphasized) folks of Cob County are in an understandable snit because their corn, their lifeblood, has suddenly stopped growing. While most resort to just scratching their heads about it, the staunchly determined Maizy (Danielle Wade, a charmer) is bound to take action. Against the stubborn do-nothingness of her beau named Beau (Jake Odmark) she decides to seek help out of town. In the BIG CITY. Tampa!
            The fun had with Tampa may be the best sequence in “Shucked,” not the least because it’s there that Maizy meets a handsome con man named Gordy (Quinn VanAntwerp – his real name sounds more like a character from this show) who’s advertising himself as a “corn doctor,” of the bunions variety. But of course Maizy misunderstands and recruits him for agricultural doctoring. Gordy, seeing what he believes is a very valuable bracelet around Maizy’s wrist and learning that the stones come from Cob County, decides to go along with her with dollar signs in his eyes.
            From there the conflict in Cob is less about the corn that won’t grow and more about the romantic complications that swirl around Maizy, Gordy, Beau and Maizy’s no-B.S. cousin Lulu (Miki Abraham, the most entertaining character in “Shucked” and then some).
            The presence of two wisecracking and knowing storytellers (Maya Lagerstam and Tyler Joseph Ellis) ensures that every eventuation and motivation is explained to the audience throughout the two-hours-plus show. They’re heavy on the pun-making as well, though as noted earlier, Peanut is in a class by himself.
            While the entire yarn is corn right off the cob, the music is surprisingly accessible and not confined to what might have been expected to be a twangy-country score. Lulu’s “Independently Owned” number is hot and sassy; Maizy’s “Walls” and “Woman of the World” are earnestly rendered by Wade; Beau’s “Somebody Will” and “OK” ballads are more interesting than his character, frankly.
            Gordy is presented as a likable con artist in the “Music Man” mold, and while VanAntwerp is no Robert Preston, he’s more satisfying to root for than the sulking Beau that Odmark has to play. In the same vein, Abraham’s Lulu is a worlds more entertaining character than the sweetly stalwart Maizy. The inevitable Gordy/Lulu byplay is suggestive like the rest of “Shucked” but a cut above in mere wit.
            With a show that includes a song titled “Holy Shit” you know you’re not getting “Les Mis” here. Audiences will be divided, no doubt, on how much punning, innuendo and down-home naughtiness they can take.
            Me? About half. Hee but not haw.
            “Shucked” runs through Aug. 17 at the Civic Theatre in downtown San Diego.