‘Shucked’ at Hollywood Pantages delivers a cornucopia of delight

Corn is no stranger to Broadway musicals. In “Oklahoma!,” the crop is “as high as an elephant’s eye,” according to the lyrical measurements of the show’s opening number, “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’.”

But in “Shucked,” the hilarious countrified musical that brought “Hee Haw”-style comedy in a modern guise to Broadway, corn finally gets top billing. The North American tour production, which opened Wednesday at the Hollywood Pantages, is a folksy farcical riot, wholesome enough for widespread appeal but with just enough flamboyant oddity to tickle the funny bone of urban sophisticates.

The book by Robert Horn (who won a Tony for his exuberantly witty book for the musical version of “Tootsie”) employs two narrators. Storyteller 1 (Maya Lagerstam) and Storyteller 2 (Tyler Joseph Ellis) are our guides to this “farm to fable” tale about “a simple place that time forgot,” Cob County. The exact coordinates of this backwater are a bit hazy, but Storyteller 2 helpfully pinpoints the locale as “a place where being from somewhere is who you are.”

Cob County, as the name suggests, is corn crazy. The town’s livelihood depends on a flourishing crop, but just as the local sweethearts, Maizy (Danielle Wade) and Beau (Jake Odmark), are about to tie the knot, the corn starts shriveling up. Maizy halts the wedding until the crisis is resolved. Beau assures her that he’ll eventually figure it out, but time is not on Cob County’s side.

Maizy proposes to do the unthinkable: leave town to consult an outside expert.

Maya Lagerstam as Storyteller 1, left, and Tyler Joseph Ellis as Storyteller 2 in the North American Tour of “Shucked” at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre.

(Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

As far as her alarmed friends and family members are concerned, she might as well be volunteering to go to Mars on an Elon Musk rocket ship. Beau is dead set against the idea, but Maizy won’t take no for answer and heads for the biggest metropolis she can imagine, Tampa, Fla., where she meets a seductive foot doctor, Gordy (Quinn VanAntwerp) who caters to lonely women and is desperate to pay off a gambling debt.

Easy marks don’t come any easier than naïve, trusting Maizy, whose bracelet of rare stones has caught con man Gordy’s predatory attention. She explains that her grandfather made it from the rocks that a flood washed under their home. And that is how a quack who treats the tender corns on pedicured toes suddenly becomes a world-renowned corn doctor in a show that seemingly never met a pun it didn’t like.

Danielle Wade as Maizy, left, and Miki Abraham as Lulu in the North American Tour of “Shucked” at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre.

(Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

The humor, at once simple and clever, innocent and off-color, amiably wants to get a rise, and Horn isn’t too proud to go low in his genial wordplay. Peanut (Mike Nappi), Beau’s kindhearted, witless brother, is a geyser of potty-minded quips. “I just passed a huge squirrel, which is odd because I don’t remember eating one,” he tells his brother, who merely asked, “What’s going on?”

All of the elements of “Shucked” are perfectly calibrated to shamelessly win us over. First and foremost among these is Jack O’Brien’s precise and invigorating direction, which treats the characters as our country cousins, never condescending to them, even at their laughable worst.

The fresh look of the production, incorporating Scott Pask’s bucolic cartoon set, prevents the show from coming across as dated. Tilly Grimes’ sexy, small-town costumes lend an updated “Flashdance” feeling.

The sunshiny score by Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, a blend of country, blues and Broadway pop, is intent on making theatergoers smile. “Corn,” the opening number celebrating the miracle and many uses of this magical plant, starts things off riotously, building sensationally to a chorus line of corncobs that choreographer Sarah O’Gleby sets into zesty motion.

The cast contains a wide range of gorgeous voices. Wade’s Maizy sounds like an ingenue Dolly Parton, exquisite to listen to, especially when her heart is in play, as is the case with “Maybe Love,” a number so good it returns in the second act as the jumbled romances get sorted out.

Odmark’s Beau, the boyfriend who gets shucked, if you will, never loses his country charisma. He performs with an affectionate twinkle in his eye, offering understanding even when his jealousy is put to the severest test. But, as he reminds himself in the handsomely performed hearbreak song “Somebody Will,” he knows his worth and that his innate goodness will carry him through.

Another vocal standout is Miki Abraham, who plays Lulu, Maizy’s whiskey-making street-savvy cousin, who sees straight through Gordy, even if she can’t help being enticed by his rakish game. Abraham practically brings the house down with “Independently Owned,” an anthem to her character’s emancipated spirit. But Lulu might protest too much: She’s clearly not so hard-nosed about love as she makes herself out to be.

“Shucked,” like “& Juliet” at the Ahmanson right now, are two clever contemporary shows that deliver the kind of delight you can’t find anywhere else but the musical stage. I might have enjoyed “Shucked” 15% more if it were 15% shorter. And I missed the uncompromising individuality of the original Broadway cast, which has been slightly homogenized for the North American tour.

On Broadway, Alex Newell, who played Lulu, became the first out nonbinary actor to win a Tony for performance. Kevin Cahoon was nominated in the same category for his captivatingly eccentric performance as Peanut.

The sense of a community fully able to express itself in all its variety is thankfully still an integral part of “Shucked,” lending warmth to the intoxicating silliness of a musical that made this city slicker long to move to corn country.