KWIT: Shucked

 KWIT=Kent's Week In Theatre...is this actually a thing now? I mean, I said 2026 was going to be a theatre year for me... but I wasn't really serious...was I?

Princess of Wales Theatre, Toronto - Friday, March 6, 2026

Unless someone (like me) tells you directly (as I'm doing now) what Shucked actually is (I will get to that in a moment), then (to me) there's really nothing appealing about a country music-infused song and dance show whose story is built around corn and whose humour is seemingly corn-based puns.

Seriously. This is how the Mirvish website promotes the show:
Join Maizy, the spunky heroine, as she battles to save her beloved crop with the help of a con man posing as a "corn doctor." Get ready for a wild ride filled with toe-tapping country tunes, side-splitting jokes and a whole lot of heart. Will Maizy save the day and find true love, or will the corny jokes be the only thing popping?

That description alone makes me feel like I've eaten a whole large bag of buttered popcorn at the theatre...heavy, bloated and a little sick to my stomach. (For some reason I had a difficult time finding someone to take my second ticket after my original theatre companion had to bail....)

When I read that description, it gives the impression that Shucked consists of, I dunno, like, puerile granny humour and Conway Twitty songs sung by a cast ensemble. It sounds utterly unpalatable.

And yet, this thing was a multiple Tony-award nominee and won for best featured actor so there's got to be more to it then that...right? I mean, the blue rinse crowd is not the main theatre crowd anymore, and grannies are, like, my mom's age, or even younger and don't share "granny" sensibilities anymore. So what actually is this thing?

What you really need to know about Shucked is that it's not *just* corny jokes and bad puns (although there are plenty of those) but that it's a show densely packed with jokes in the vein of a Tina Fey/Robert Carlock production like 30 Rock or Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (or the new, really good The Rise and Fall of Reggie Dinkins).  There's just so many jokes in this thing that if the first one makes you groan and the second one make you roll your eyes, the third one might crack and smile and the fourth one's gonna get you. Wash, rinse, repeat. When there's so many jokes, in such density, that even a 25% success ratio means you're still laughing quite a bit, and that's a pretty good time.

The structure of the show has two storytellers (Maya Lagerstam and Joe Moeller here) who narrate, interrupt, intervene and interact with the story, but aren't actual characters in the story. They are, pointedly, a black woman and gay man, speaking with southern twang, and these aspects are addressed as part of the isolated and improbably multicultural southern town of Cob County.

The story proper starts with a wedding, as Maizy (Danielle Wade) is about to marry her childhood sweetheart Beau (Nick Bailey), but during the wedding, the corn starts dying and the wedding is halted. Beau may be dim witted but he knows corn, yet he can't solve the riddle of why it's turning blue and dying. Maizy then comes up with a plan to venture out of the walls of Cob County and find outside help, even though everyone essentially tells her there's no reason to, and Beau tells her if she leaves, it's over between them.

Maizy empowers herself and heads out...to Tampa, where she meets Gordy, a largely unsuccessful flim-flam man from a family of scam artists and swindlers. He's posing as a podiatrist (advertising himself as a "corn doctor"), which is a silly scam to run, and he's in deep in gambling debts. When Maizy mistakes his advertising, Gordy sees not only an escape for his troubles, but also, from Maizy's jewelry, that Cob County may just be sitting on a minefield of rare gems.

And so the story heads back to Cob County where personalities clash and tensions raise and romantic entanglements get complicated. Jokes are told, songs are sung, and it all wraps up in a happy ending of course.

Shucked is not a spectacle of a show. The set is largely static with a few rolling corn field sections that rotate to become the "TAMPA" sign. Occasionally some barrels are rolled out or a mobile quarter-porch set, but this is not a visual show. It's a flat-out comedy, so the jokes and interplay and comedic set-ups are it's highlight.  

Beau's brother, Peanut (Mike Nappi), has a real deep, slow drawl, and often steps aside to tell a string of "Well I think" jokes which feel very Jeff Foxworthy "You might be a redneck" inspired. Again, just one type of humour employed in a show that crosses a bridge between Hee-Haw and Letterkenny. There's a sense that the show is making fun of small town southerners, or "simple folk", and at times it really, really is, but there are stabs, especially in the second act, at showing the merits of tight knit communities. "We may be simple" Beau says to Gordy, "but that doesn't mean we're stupid. That's a simple mistake stupid people make."

The book is by Robert Horn with additional compositions/lyrics by Grammy award winning powerhouse country music songwriters Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally. There are the cast ensemble songs and the story framework songs which feel like traditional musical numbers with just a little bit of twang to them, and then there are the solo numbers, the real nu-country power ballad type songs which are rather exceptional, if you like that sort of thing (though not my style).

But if the show's fullest intent is to be a comedy, then it is the songs where it falls flat for me. There's not a lot of humour in them, specifically in those big power numbers. They are, frankly, too earnest for the tone of the show. Shucked is not really all that interested in real emotions, so the big numbers are somewhat disingenuous.  I think these songs needed to be more in the Lonely Island vein where the first two verses and the chorus are the big, emotional numbers, and then the third verse takes a turn into something absurd, and the absurdity builds through the rest of the song, before abruptly coming back home to the emotional core it started with, but now completely undercut by whatever the absurdity was. 

Alas, what we have seems like musical numbers meant for people to listen to in earnest after the show. I'm sure it's been successful at that.

Shucked was an honest surprise, not remotely as cringe-inducing or saccharine or groan-evoking as I was expecting. It had a lot more bawdy humour than I was expecting, and much more cussin' than I was expecting (I still never expect swearing in musicals... one song is even titled "Holy Shit", the refrain of the song), but it's still not very provocative or challenging, I think to its detriment. It never actually deals with small town prejudices, and although it's clear that the one narrator is gay, there's nothing outwardly LGBTQ+ friendly about Cob County, it's pretty monocultural, and it likes it that way.

KWIT: The Devil Wears Prada

KWIT=Kent's Week in ...Theatre?? What the...?

The Dominion Theatre, London - Wednesday, January 28

I'm not a theatre guy. I've never quite caught the bug. Plays are, to me, conceptually boring - people standing on stage talking with limited room to move, limited scenery to traverse? And musicals, well, that's not music that I like to listen to.

And yet, I do get a bit exhilarated whenever I go to the theatre, particularly musicals. Even if it's terrible, I come out a little amped up and want to experience more, right away.

Lady Kent loves really only Shakespeare on stage. In our trip to London last week she managed to see A Midsummer Night's Dream at the candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in an afternoon show while I was at a work event. Shakespeare tends to make me sleepy but the experience of candlelit theatre sounded neat. She was all good for theatrical experiences but we were in London and I needed mine. I had her look at the extremely long list of productions (so many of them either adaptations of movies or turning a musical artist's catalogue into some sort of singing-and-dancing narrative) and she decided to go with what's familiar... The Devil Wears Prada. (Also 2006 marks both the film's 20th anniversary and our 20th anniversary since we started dating, and The Devil Wears Prada was our second movie we saw together, so a bit of a sentimental connection there).

It's off season in London travel so tickets were dirt cheap and when we got to the Dominion, the theatre was not so lively. it was maybe a 2/3 crowd on the main floor.

The big name draw of the show is Vanessa Williams playing the Miranda Priestley role originated by Meryl Streep. The rest of the cast is comprised of primarily British actors, including Stevie Doc as Andy, James Darch as Christian, and Matt Henry as Nigel. Canadian actor Keelan McAuley plays Andy's boyfriend Nate, who is just as aggravating a whiny and needy character as he is in the film, if not moreso.  I bring up the nationality of these actors because, with the exception of Emily (played by Talia Halford), these main characters are all American. And only Henry comes close to pulling off a convincing American accent.  The end result is, any song involving Andy, Christian, Nate (or the sexy nurse that Emily sings a duet with) all sound horrendously flat.

I don't know theatre well, so I'm not sure where the dividing line is with music by/lyrics by/book by credits, but the "music by" credit is to Elton John, and maybe you can hear it a little in one or two songs (ok, "Dress Your Way Up" is absolutely an EJ banger) but for the most part the music sounds like derivative musical theatre pap. I suppose like Hallmarkies or sitcoms or crime podcasts, there comes a sense of comfort with familiarity, so when a musical tune sounds like a musical tune, I suspect there's a segment of the musical theatre-going crowd that just eats that shit up. I point to the hilarious "Rogers: The Musical" from Marvel's Hawkeye TV series which apes the cliched musical tune to the extent that it acts equally as parody and loving homage. The opening number of The Devil Wears Prada, "I Mean Business" sounds almost exactly like the "I Could Do This All Day" number from "Rogers: The Musical", and I'm sure a thousand other musical theatre songs.

There are a few songs, "The House of Miranda", "In or Out" and "Dress Your Way Up" which have a disco feel, and the energy whenever that disco vibe is in play the music the whole show comes to life where much of the rest of it falls flat.

Henry gets a powerful solo in "Seen", the highlight song of the show, which, for the fourth lead of the show to have the biggest show stopper is pretty wild. But it's about growing up and hiding one's identity only to move through the world, shedding the layers of protection and masking to be seen as one's true self, and it's the only tune in the whole show that seems to have any real resonance for the character singing it.

If you know the movie, you know this story, and it's the same, just with song and dance numbers in it. Except that Andy seems very much a passenger in this story and not the protagonist. Everything sort of revolves around her, but musical interludes interjecting into the thoughts and emotions of the other characters really steal Andy's thunder, and frequently overshadow her. By the ending number, when Doc is belting out Andy's tune of independence, "What's Right for Me", the rest of the cast falls away and it's just Doc on stage giving it her all, and I'm not buying a moment of it. The solo spotlight still didn't feel earned for that character, and the emotion of the song felt inauthentic.

As for Williams... on paper, she seems like perfect casting for the role. In reality, I'm not sure what that role actually is and what is requested of it. I don't think I realized it from watching the film a few times, where Miranda seems like such a massive role, but she's actually barely in the story at all. She is the phantom, the spectre that looms large over everything, has her hand in everything, bends everything to her whim, but she's not present. And so when Williams first appears, lifted up from below stage by a rising platform, she's obviously getting that rousing, show-stopping applause, but then she proceeds to sing-talk her way through the opening number she's participating in.  "Stay On Top" is Miranda's big number, but what it unfortunately does is expose Williams' limitations as a singer.  She's a tiny lady with big stage presence, but doesn't really have that big stage voice. If you think of her big hit "Save the Best for Last", you're not thinking of powerful vocals in that track. She has a way of hushed singing, and when it comes time for power, it never fully materializes.

The worst number of the show is easily "I Only Love You For Your Body", where Andy and Nate are supposed to be playful and sexy and funny, and at best accomplishing playful. There's no chemistry between the two performers and the choreography gives Nate some very feminizing movements which makes you question whether Nate would be attracted to any woman.

The show is not great overall but also far from a disaster.  It has its highlights in its numbers, some of its sets, and most specifically its costume design. Everyone, with the exception of Nate and Andy early on, looks incredible. The wardrobe all naturally needs to be functional in song-and-dance routines, but they all look like extremely high end fashion, tailored to all the performers perfectly. It's the saving grace of the show that it looks so damn good. I was never bored with gawking at good looking, fit, exquisitely dressed people. 

I came out of the experience truly aware that I enjoyed myself with a heavy pinch of the ironic salt. I couldn't get Lady Kent to commit to another, but I'm thinking 2026 might be a theatre year for me.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

 2022, d.  - theatrical performance (June 19, Ed Mirvish Theatre, Toronto)

Let's just get this out of the way off the top...I like Harry Potter ok. I'm not the hugest of fans, but I do generally like the film series and think they were quite an achievement.  I found the books started feeling unnecessarily bloated around the fourth and gave up on reading them.  I vehemently detest J.K. Rowling's outspoken anti-trans stance, and find that for someone who talks a lot in her stories about acceptance, that she seems painfully unaware of how close-minded and proactively hurtful she has become.  I wish to, as much as possible, distance my assessment of the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child from the ugliness of its creator, separate the art from the artist, as a lot of other artists had a hand in this production than just Rowling (is it fair to wish that the property were owned by some faceless corporation, like how Disney has control of Star Wars now?)

I was lucky enough to have a friend who is working on the show and graced me with tickets to the opening day performance, lucky in the sense that tickets are hard to get generally, and that I didn't have to pay for them.  

I'm not a regular theatre goer, but I've seen a number of different productions in Toronto (and even a couple on Broadway).  This was, far and away, the biggest, most elaborate, most technically complex production I've seen.  The theme of the show, through and through, is magic, and it's everywhere within the production.  It's not just the pyrotechnics emanating from the wands, or the clever trap door-aided physical transformation scenes, or the slight of hand tricks where one part of the set becomes a complete other set without you noticing the act of transformation.  It's everywhere.  I remember a performance of Les Miserables with a transforming set, but that's just it's transition from one act's backdrop to another.  This show's sets seem so simplistic and yet they are constantly move right before your eyes without calling attention to themselves.  Sometimes it's just a trick of the lighting, sometimes it's the ancillary players using the props as one thing, but them becoming another thing as the scene goes on (suitcases play multiple parts throughout the performance).  

While there are no songs -- it's not a musical -- there are dance numbers, and the dances are quite incredible.  They use props, wardrobes, and the various tricks of the sets and stage to create a dazzling display that serves the dual purpose both of visually arresting choreography but also in obfuscating the set transitions.  You only kind of notice the end result when they exit the stage, to see that it's been completely redressed during their dance.  The dancing is very contemporary, but also so specific to its dual purpose.  It's "in world" in terms of the people and their movements and the accessories being used, and, except maybe the first time, it never feels shoehorned in... there's an organicness to it.  Other scenes change as a result of passing time (an anti-montage if you will) which involves the cast on stage moving slowly and jerkily to not-quite-strobe lighting cues that make it seem like time is acting erratically.  Part of the plot also involves time travel, and they've devised an exceptionally clever lighting effect to show when a journey has completed, on top of the clock motifs embedded into the set that are equally highlighted by different lighting.

The stage features rotating pieces, trap doors, treadmills, all which are used in both obvious and obtuse ways.  Characters will walk decently paced while basically existing in same spot, while the curving part of the stage provides movement to pieces around them that give the illusion that the performer is moving closer or further away.  It's so well done, and so subtle, that unless you start to look for it you don't even see it.

Wire work also has a heavy role to play in this, and there are performers being swung around the stage, and in one instance over the audience (still not sure if it was a performer, an animatronic, or just a trick of light and wind), but it's again, always disguised how the performer, previously untetherd, suddenly is up in the air (or whether it's the performer or something else, swapped out through a trap door).

I was just in awe of this production purely on a technical level.  It's dazzling, and certainly exceptionally well thought through.  No movement is wasted, and every piece of the set seems to have been optimized for maximum functionality.  And it all looks magnificent.

Now it's all in service of the story, an original creation from Rowling, with playwright Jack Thorne and director John Tiffany also getting story credit.   It's steeped in the lore of the previous Harry Potter septology, but basically fits as a legasequel, in which the primary characters are children of the lead characters of the previous series, but the parents also play a part.  As well, in legasequel style, the kids are dealing with ripples that remain from the previous endeavour. 

In this case our leads are Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy, the former the younger child of Harry and Ginny, the latter the son of Harry's childhood rival, Draco.  Albus is awkward and anxious, he feels the weight of his father's legacy on him in a way his brother, James, somehow ignored.  He's unsure how to live up to the expectations he thinks are upon him, and it builds up anger and resentment towards his father within him.  Scorpius, meanwhile, is a nervous twitch of a boy who is super smart but also super awkward.  The horrible, unfounded rumour is that his parents used a Time Turner to go back in time and that he's the offspring of his mother and Voldemort.  In an absolutely clever and well done on-stage montage, we traverse two years of the boys' lives at Hogwarts (and inbetween) in less than 10 mintues of stage time which serves both to solidify their connection to each other, as well as the awkwardness between Albus and Harry.

The crux of the story is a bit of a shoehorn, as a wedged-in scene finds Cedric Diggory's father (the boy played by Robert Pattinson in The Goblet of Fire) implores Harry to use a Time Turner to go back in time and save his boy.  Harry, now Mister of Defense or somesuch, denies the existence of any Time Turners and refuses the old man's pleas.  However, a skulking Albus is aware that Harry recently discovered a Time Turner in a raid.  Albus and Scorpius, escaping their train to year 3 at Hogwarts, set out to steal the Time Turner and set right what Harry could, or would not.  Of course, these two awkward boys and their Time Travel shenanigans make a real mess of things and things get real bad.  

The plot weaves in and out of events of The Goblet of Fire, but uses its story to be one about fathers.  Harry feels like a failure as a father to Albus, a boy he doesn't try to understand, but then admits that without having a father himself, he doesn't have anyone to measure himself against.  Scorpius, having recently lost his mother to disease, senses distance between his father and himself, distance which Draco admits to not wanting but not understanding how to correct.  Harry's father figure, Dumbledor, makes appearances as a moving speaking portait (an excellent effect of lighting) and calls the old man out for his coldness.  James Potter, the father Harry never knew, is a bit of a shadow, until he is not.  And there's even another father who plays a role in the proceedings, but that's a spoiler.  And of course, there's Cedric Diggory's grieving father, who has seemingly withered away in his despair over the years.

Being that this production's opening day was on Father's Day, it was a rather fitting day to catch it, and the impact seemed even greater as a result.  I think it's the strength of the story.  The stupid boys doing stupid time travel things without thinking through the consequences seemed an exercise to get some fan favourite characters into the proceedings as well as drag the story through a number of familiar cues.  There are some surprises, but it all felt a little fan-servicey and it gets a bit Back to the Future Part 2 at times.

The all-Canadian(?) cast were all quite good, with only Scorpius performer Thomas Mitchell Barnet and Katie Ryerson's Moaning Myrtle really standing out for giving bigger, broader performances.  Everyone else was giving apt energy.  I think Draco Malfoy performer Brad Hodder did a good job, but it's more the character than the performer that gets the best speeches in the production, in part because of considering who the words are coming from. The accents are all "stage British", and sound as such, fading in and out a bit throughout.  It's all fine to my Canadian ears.  Actual Brits may feel differently.

The heavy insinuation by the end is that Albus and Scorpius are in love with each other, but the story never goes beyond inference.  It seems to be explicitly written in a way to allow for plausible deniability that they're just bestest friends ever and that the "love" they speak of for each other is just that.  It's Rowling's late-stage, out-of-story admission that Dumbledor was gay all over again, just cowardly. The boys share a hug or two but there's no kiss, which seems regressive.  I'm sure the production doesn't want the interruption of hate-filled homophobes standing up and disrupting the whole play but they easily could have devised it so that the show ends with their kiss which then goes to curtains and fanfare reception, drowning out the haters.  Fuck the haters.

Which brings us back to where we started. Rowling. A hater. Its obvious that this is a successful production but I have to say in the back of my brain I couldn't shut off the notion that there would be some form of anti-trans subliminal messaging somewhere in all this.  There isn't, and I admit it is paranoid thinking that there would be.  I'm sure it's something neither Thorne nor Tiffany would allow, but how does one condemn the artist and still condone their art.  If you support the art, you're therefore supporting the artist, are you not?  I can't in conscience tell people to pay to go see this production, but I can't really say it's not something worth seeing either.   The story, the name of Harry Potter is the draw, but the real art of it all come from set designer Christine Jones, costume designer Katrina Lindsay, movement director Steven Hoggett, composer and arranger Imogen Heap (it's a great score), lighting designer Neil Austin, sound designer Gareth Fry, illusions and magic from Jamie Harrison and all the other great artists involved.  Everyone else polished it up and brought it to life, all Rowling did was build the world and the characters and story (I know, it is a mighty achievement and I'm really falsely underplaying it... I just wish she weren't such a TERF).