Shucked

This was an interesting musical as the thing that I feel that makes it the most interesting is also the thing that kept me from liking it as much as I liked other musicals I've enjoyed a lot. Shucked is definitely more of a comedy, so much so to the point that it feels a little try hard at times with its comedy but generally it hits and some jokes hit really well.

Now as I see more musicals, what I find to appreciate are the ones that help me get immersed into the story and basically forget that I'm watching a show which I guess makes sense for pretty much any kind of entertainment, at least for me. But what makes it more special to me when musicals can become immersive is that the fact of it being a musical makes it more difficult for me to get fully immersed. It's almost like the entertainment medium is turning its difficulty up since breaking into song and dance randomly is the quickest way to feel like I'm just watching a show again. So with that an important thing is the transitions to the song which Shucked is alright, nothing special necessarily that stuck out to me. But what the show does that is different, that is both immersion breaking but also unique from musicals I've seen so far but also entertaining in general is the times when Shucked transitions from its story and music to becoming more like a stand up comedy routine.

So this is done with varying levels of execution, meaning that some parts are just quick run-on of jokes that break away from the natural conversation and then there's the times when Peanut, Beau's brother, will say something to the extent of "you know what I think?" and then the lighting switches to focusing on him as he states a handful of jokes that generally have nothing to do with the story but are nonetheless generally funny or at least effective in a sense of modern stand up comedy where some jokes are vague political statements made to get applause more than laughter. This happens a couple times throughout the show and by the third time when it did I felt myself both rolling my eyes about it going into this again but also starting to smile in eagerness to hear what's going to be said. Like I said generally I enjoyed these parts but it did prevent full immersion into the story of the show but then again being a comedy, you're not meant to really take it seriously in the first place so to me immersion was likely the last thing on their to do list with this one.

When it comes to the songs, they were generally serviceable for the story but nothing stood out besides the performance for Somebody Will. Nothing was bad but just also nothing kept my attention after it was done. The performances were good, especially with their comedic timing which I know is definitely a more difficult feat so I would say that is what I would consider to be the best aspect in this show. With that said I'd recommend this one for a fun time. None of the jokes really go in either political direction as it feels this show was aimed to be a middle of the aisle kind of thing. Which is good because not everything has to be political but I feel it's worth mentioning since comedy seems to be married more to politics than humor these days where so many comedians seem to go more for generic applause than laughter and so with this one it's not really going for applause from one side or the other but please it generally safe to get applause from as many as possible, which usually is a losing strategy but I feel they pull it off well.