Theater: “Shucked,” new Bway musical comedy

At one point in “Shucked,” Beau (Andrew Durand), the male lead says, “I trust three things in life: God, my truck, and my gut.” Careful there, bubba. If I trusted my gut, I would’ve never agreed to see this nonstop high-larious musical, currently (and hopefully forever) playing at the Nederlander Theater.

The book by Robert Horn (“Tootsie”) is Farmer-in-the-Dell simple: an isolated farming community in Cobb County (get it?) is aghast when their corn crop starts dying. Maisie, the female lead (Isabella McCalla from “The Prom”) wants to consult a specialist outside the community to resolve the problem. She defies Beau, whom she’s about to marry, and escapes to—wait for it—Tampa.

There, Maisie meets Gordy, a sleazy womanizing podiatrist who hangs a shingle outside his office that reads “Corn doctor.” (Um, podiatrist treats corns, get it?) Maisie, who doesn’t get out much, falls for it anyway and introduces herself. Gordy espies the necklace she’s wearing, thinks it’s valuable, and sweet-talks her into taking him back to Cobb County. This leads to a frosty reception by the townspeople, who smell a rat. Maisie’s cousin Lulu (the voluptuous Alex Newell from “Once on this Island”) is especially skeptical.

The country-humor-flavored book is laden with puns and groaners which the playwright, actors, and audience are happily all in on. It has almost as many more salacious zingers as “The Book of Mormon” (example: “I may have lost my virginity but I still have the box it came in.”) The above-average Broadway score by Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally pokes fun at the rubes without ever getting mean about it. I can personally testify the largely non-new York audience did not seem the least bit offended.

Special kudos to Newell and to Kevin Cahoon in a minor role as Peewee the closeted gay brother. The hilarious Cahoon whom we remember from “The Foreigner” years ago seems to have a gift for delivering comic lines a la local-yokel.

So, fellow cosmopolites, don’t trust your gut. If you grimace at those ads for “Shucked” on the Citibike stands, or if the thought of seeing a country-western musical makes you outright gag, see this play anyway. And take your friends from out of town. They’ll be as shocked—or is it Shucked?—as you are.

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