THE THEATRE - CORN COUNTRY

"Shucked" premières on Broadway.

- VINSON CUNNINGHAM

The new musical “Shucked”—with music and lyrics by Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally and a book by Robert Horn, directed by Jack O’Brien and choreographed by Sarah O’Gleby, at the Nederlander—is exactly what you think it is, if you’ve seen any of its many ads: a show whose often disparate parts are held together only by tough, silky fibres of sometimes indigestible corn. The story is set in a mythical place called Cob County; its inhabitants are implicitly Midwestern, and, as the name of their locale attests, they all have a relentless tendency toward puns and other kernels of wordplay. They’re cut off from the outside world, happily secluded, shielded by a high, lush wall of their favorite vegetable, which they use to fuel their economy and feed their people. Nobody leaves Cob County, and nobody new comes in.

The drama starts when the corn dies. For no reason that any of Cob’s inhabitants can figure out, the crop goes bust, and the town begins to panic. Maizy (Caroline Innerbichler), a young, slightly oblivious optimist with a yen for adventure, decides to venture forth from her provincial hometown—much to the chagrin of her fiancé, Beau (Andrew Durand)—to find some help for the wilting sheaves and the people, her people, who depend on them.