From the Lawton Constitution
By James Finck, Ph.D. 23 hrs ago
If you saw me during my senior year of high school, you probably would not have been surprised to learn that I played defensive end for my high school football team. I was 6 feet tall, weighed 250 pounds, spent a good deal of my free time in the gym, and wore my letter jacket like a second skin. What may have surprised you, however, was that I was also in my school’s production of “South Pacific.”
My parents wanted to make sure my siblings and I were well cultured, so they introduced us to many different things. As much as I love sports, I also became a huge fan of Broadway musicals. Growing up in the Washington, D.C., area, there were plenty of venues to see plays, along with several trips I took to New York to catch shows there as well.
My point in sharing all of this is to say that I consider myself pretty well versed in Broadway. I see as many new shows as I can, and while I have enjoyed several of them, so many are just so serious. Serious is not a bad thing. Some of my favorite shows are very serious. But every so often a production comes along that makes you genuinely laugh out loud.
Last weekend, I took my wife to see “Shucked” at Oklahoma City’s Civic Center Music Hall, and I am so grateful that I did. I have not laughed that hard in a long time, while also being moved by the powerful music and an endearing story.
The best way to describe the play is “The Music Man” meets “Airplane!.” While many older musicals may have one or two classic show tunes, “The Music Man” has hit after hit from a variety of characters. Then there is “Airplane!,” which surely is the funniest movie ever made, with nearly every line serving as a joke and “Don’t call me Shirley.” A colleague and I quoted lines from it all last semester and still have not made it through all of them.
That is the perfect way to describe “Shucked.” Every song felt like a hit; some cracked you up, while others were powerful ballads. Then there was the dialogue, which had the audience in stitches. The show packed in so many great one-liners that even Leslie Nielsen would have appreciated them. One joke described their town as being so small that “Row V. Wade” was a debate about the best way to cross a river.
I do not want to give too much away. The plot is fairly simple and borrows elements from “The Music Man”: a small-town girl leaves her isolated community to venture into the larger world in order to save her town. She meets a conman who travels back with her and is ultimately forced to reevaluate his life while living amongst the townspeople.
While the show is the funniest musical I have seen since “Spamalot,” it also explores important themes: community versus isolation, trust versus skepticism, belonging, and most importantly, the tension between tradition and change is so strong that I half expected Tevye from “Fiddler on the Roof” to step out and say, “On the other hand.” Most importantly, though, “Shucked” is a story about community, tradition, family, and love.
One thing that especially deserves praise is the traveling company itself. They were outstanding. Not only were the leads excellent, but even the secondary characters displayed incredible range and vocal power. I was blown away when the character Beau sang “Somebody Will.” It took the audience a few seconds to applaud, almost as if everyone was speechless.
As a Broadway fan, I would love to see more musical comedies. “Spamalot,” which I saw with the original cast on Broadway, was hilarious, but that was the last time I truly laughed that hard at a musical. I know I am in the minority, but I did not find “The Producers” particularly funny — perhaps because I saw it the same weekend as “Spamalot.” I also do not find “The Book of Mormon” funny. Other musicals laugh with people; “The Book of Mormon” laughs at Mormons. As the Broadway community frequently preaches tolerance, giving a Tony Award to a show that mocks and ridicules people’s sacred beliefs feels hypocritical and is simply mean.
I would love to see Broadway make more comedies like “Shucked” — not political nor controversial. What we need, in a time when everyone seems so angry, are more opportunities to forget our worries and laugh. That is exactly what “Shucked” delivered. It was a fun, light, refreshing musical that had me cracking up the entire show, and I give it a solid A.
One quick note: while the themes of the show are generally family-friendly, there are a few swear words throughout, and several jokes and puns rely on innuendo.
The next performances of “Shucked” will be May 26-31 in Reno, Nevada, and June 2-7 in Las Vegas.
James Finck is a professor of American history at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. He can be reached at james.finck@swoknews.com.
Historically Speaking 