Jake Odmark and Danielle Wade get cozy in “Shucked,” on stage through Sunday at the Des Moines Civic Center. (Photo: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)
By Michael Morain
At the start of “Shucked,” when the whole denim-clad cast hits the Des Moines Civic Center stage to sing about corn, you almost feel a little sorry for them. Here they are in a slick show from New York, doing a kickline routine with ears of corn in their hands and tryin’ their gosh-darn best to look like farmers while more than 2,500 Iowans — honest to goodness Iowans — look on. We politely applauded after the first number on Tuesday night, but I couldn’t help but think of those poor suckers who sell refrigerators to the folks up north who have dozens of words for “snow.” It’s hard to impress experts.
But like real farmers, the actors just keep at it. And eventually, their persistence pays off. After they empty their grain bin full of corny puns in the first song, called “Corn” (duh), they move into even goofier territory and just keep firing off jokes — hick jokes, city slicker jokes, sex jokes, bathroom jokes, dead grandma jokes, you name it. There’s such a high yield of groanable one-liners that, statistically, one of them is bound to make you laugh sooner or later. When it does, you might hear yourself chuckle. And then you’ll hear that chuckle ripple through the crowd like a breeze across a field. And then you’ll just relax, surrender to the show’s shameless charms and settle in for a Jolly Time. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
The story is predictable — you’ll smell each twist like rain from two counties over — but it gets the job done. When the fine people of rural Cob County notice their crops are dying, a plucky young woman named Maizy (Danielle Wade, channeling early Dolly Parton) ventures out to the big wide world to find help. In Tampa, of all places, she meets a con artist posing as a podiatrist (Quinn VanAntwerp) who accompanies her back home, ticks off her hunky fiance (Jake Odmark) and tries to hoodwink the locals. (It’s worth noting the locals’ accent comes from somewhere much farther south than Keokuk or Clarinda.)
Each of the main characters gets a solo to establish their inner turmoil — and to give us a merciful break from the “Hee Haw” humor — and the actors sing them well enough to win over any crowd in Nashville or New York. Maizy’s cousin Lulu (Miki Abraham) has a set of pipes that run like a Deere. The chorus sounds good, too, but some of their lyrics get lost in the barn rafters.
But in the end, it’s not the music you’ll remember. On the way home you’ll try to recall some of the jokes that pop like kernels in hot oil, so you can share them later with your friends. Some of the daddiest dad jokes come from a dimwit named Peanut (Mike Nappi), who deserves the last word: “Remember when I peed in the pool? The lifeguard yelled so loud I almost fell in.”
Show Comments (0)