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“We were corn-bred,” chorus the Cob County community cheerfully in Shucked. It’s just one of a cornucopia of corny puns that help to propel this supremely daft and very enjoyable musical comedy (written by Robert Horn), in which everything revolves around the sun-kissed yellow crop. Launching this year’s summer season at the Open Air Theatre, Jack O’Brien’s joyous, tongue-in-cheek staging is such a pleasing fit it’s hard to imagine it anywhere with a roof.
A huge, ramshackle barn dominates Scott Pask’s set, leaning tipsily as if it has taken a few nips of the local (corn-based) moonshine. We’re in the sort of small-town America beloved of the great Broadway musical, where the denizens break into song at the least provocation and where, according to our narrators Monique Ashe-Palmer and Steven Webb, who bounce in and out of the action with the exuberance of popcorn in a pan, “liberal is how you pour whiskey.”
Childhood sweethearts Maizy and Beau are about to tie the knot when disaster strikes: the corn begins to droop. Could this unfortunate turn of events be a bad omen? Might it have anything to do with the mysterious rocks that have turned up in the neighbourhood? Is this plot as flimsy as corn silk? All of the above. But no matter: Maizy — putting up a good case for nominative determinism — resolves to stand tall and leave her isolated community in search of a cure. Soon she has returned from the dizzy heights of Tampa with a supposed “corn-doctor” (Matthew Seadon-Young) in tow, who’s actually a conman posing as a podiatrist to the rich and silly. He is somewhat out of his depth.
In less time than it takes to shuck your supper, everyone’s engaged to the wrong person and, thanks to some eye-watering plot contortions, we’re in the sort of tangle that only a couple of soul-baring duets can fix. This happens to be a musical, so that’s all right then, and we finish with a heart-warming celebration of friendship and found family. It’s all as ridiculous as it sounds, but it rarely matters, because Horn’s script and O’Brien’s staging bobble along on the border between sincerity and sending themselves up.
Under the sweet, buttery surface there are a few nuggets of nutrition — warnings about isolationism and demonising outsiders, for example. The show misses the opportunity to go deeper and smuggle real insights in under the cloak of comedy. But it’s powered by homely charm, a rich crop of double-entendres, groan-aloud gags — many of them from Keith Ramsay’s droll, dime-store philosopher, Peanut — and some sharp lines. “This isn’t an argument,” declares Maizy at one point. “I’m right and you’re just saying stuff.”
A cracking ensemble delivers Sarah O’Gleby’s entertaining choreography — there’s a fizzing macho number featuring perilous work with barrels and planks, while the songs (music and lyrics from Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally) blend country music pastiche with a pinch of authenticity. Sophie McShera brings a lovely mix of sweet and salty to Maizy and Ben Joyce gives a barnstorming performance as Beau, all mullet and messed-up manliness. But the evening belongs to Georgina Onuorah, magnificent as Maizy’s wisecracking, whiskey-distilling cousin, Lulu, whose solo “Independently Owned” would raise the roof if there were one.
★★★★☆
To June 14, openairtheatre.com
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