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March 28, 2024

‘Duck’ is an odd dish at the Rio, but it is well prepared

‘Duck Commander Musical’ Grand Opening at Rio

Denise Truscello / WireImage / DeniseTruscello.net

The grand opening of “Duck Commander Musical” on Wednesday, April 15, 2015, at the Rio.

‘Duck Commander Musical’ Grand Opening at Rio

Jesse Lenat and Uncle Si Robertson attend the grand opening of “Duck Commander Musical” on Wednesday, April 15, 2015, at the Rio.
Launch slideshow »

‘Duck Dynasty’ on A&E

The Robertson family of “Duck Dynasty” on A&E. Launch slideshow »

A couple of years ago, master chef Eric Ripert and food/travel guru Anthony Bourdain staged one of their “Good vs. Evil” conversations at Pearl at the Palms. During this dialogue and debate, the talk turned to what makes a plate of food particularly special.

Ripert said that the dish’s core ingredients were paramount to its success. No degree of culinary acumen can make substandard elements taste as good as the finest ingredients. Bourdain, whose pursuit of knowledge about food preparation has spanned the globe, countered that technique could actually trump great ingredients — if the cooks prepping the food were masters in the field.

In this process, the manner in which the entree is seasoned and cooked is paramount.

This argument came to mind as “Duck Commander Musical,” a deep-woods buffet of faith, family and food, opened at the Rio’s Crown Theater on Wednesday night. The ingredients of this show are not spectacular, if you consider the great core source material of shows such as “Jersey Boys” at Paris Las Vegas (drawing on the familiar story and great catalog of The Four Seasons) or “Rock of Ages” at the Venetian (loaded with sing-along hits from the ’80s).

But similar to Miss Kay’s recipe for Fabulous Frog Legs, the creative team cooking up “Duck Commander Musical” has prepared a dish a typical diner would not likely consume and made it, at least, pretty palatable.

The enormous investment of resources, experience and ingenuity bubbles over in “Duck Commander,” which is based on the Robertson family of A&E’s “Duck Dynasty” reality-rooted TV series. The family rose to wealth and fame through the development of the Duck Commander duck call, the idea that helped lead patriarch Phil Robertson away from the college football field (where he famously started ahead of Terry Bradshaw at quarterback at Louisiana Tech) and into the world of entrepreneurship and, later, TV stardom.

Family members Willie Robertson and his wife, Korie, wrote the book “The Duck Commander Family — How Faith, Family and Ducks Built a Dynasty.”

This TV show was an early hit in its first few seasons, and the book seemed ripe for investigation as a musical that might work on Broadway if given a fair shot. Dodgers Theatrical, the powerhouse production company behind “Jersey Boys,” among other well-known titles, has dumped several million dollars (one educated estimate is the show cost about $10 million to stage at the Rio) into the production.

The investment is apparent immediately by the slick and extensive upgrade to Crown Theater, with three rotating video screens backing the stage and a bandstand constructed behind a camouflage facade to support the musicians. A dinner table that seats a dozen Robertsons slides forth and back, and such staging effects as a hunting thatch, bench swing, fully appointed kitchen and (yes) a disco nightclub that hearkens to the high times of “Saturday Night Fever” are rolled out in this show.

When given such mundane plot elements as the construction of a duck call, director Jeff Calhoun summons a video adaptation of that very process — we see the duck call’s inner workings and even a lathe shaving the wood into the magic little device splashed across the LED screens. You sit there and observe the amount of imagination and cost that goes into this scene, and you have to say, “That is some danged impressive lathe work there.”

Uniformly impressive are the actors carrying this 90-minute yarn about how Phil (portrayed warmly and gloweringly by Tad Wilson) envisioned, created and marketed the Duck Commander call to lead to all of this success. The two central characters are Willie (Ben Thompson) and Korie (Ginna Claire Mason), and they traverse their heartwarming romance and Willie’s goading of Phil to allow the family to be shown on TV.

They canoodle on a log and that bench swing, and you do feel that the couple is the catalysts that moved the family from a business success story to national notoriety on the TV show.

The music in the show conveys this tale, expressly with the opener “Faith, Food & Family,” and “Camouflage,” where the family extolls “show your camouflage!” as a way to express one’s true colors. Robert and Steven Morris, along with Joe Shane, have built a very effective musical score — but the issue once more is that the tunes, while crisp and catchy, are likely to be foreign to those entering the show for the first time.

Thus, you have no “SOS” moment from “Mamma Mia!” or the grand “Big Girls Don’t Cry” scene from “Jersey Boys” that rattle the crowd to attention.

As the family is in firm control of the show’s script, the musical does allow for its loose handling of facts and free falling in time. The cast’s chief scene-stealer is Jesse Lenat as Uncle Si, continually questioning the show’s “artistic license” and wondering if that license costs more or less than a real hunting license.

Si is the prince of malapropos, referencing “Little Miss Muppet” and exclaiming, “OBG-YN” instead of “OMG!” His change-of-character scene where he boasts of being such a great ladies’ man turns into a disco-rama, with strobes and mirrored balls on the video screens and Si boogying in gleaming gold pants. That is some funny stuff from Team Robertson.

Not ignored, whatsoever, is the family’s faith and struggles and the ill-timed public comments from Phil about homosexuality. His interview with GQ is revised onstage, with Phil dismissive of, and distracted by, his questioner. Months later, when the story of him comparing the gay culture to bestiality runs, Willie angrily asks why he felt the need to make those comments to a journalist, and Phil says only, “I told him what he wanted to hear and what the Bible says on the subject.”

Phil’s faith, which is family-wide and seemingly without exception, led him to stop drinking decades ago (and, in one surprising moment, he is seen back-handing a woman during a drunken diatribe in a drab tavern) and restoring his marriage. At one point, Phil literally waves the Bible to the audience.

By the end, the production is at full boil, with the cast high stepping around the Rio stage in green-and-orange hunting gear adorned (in Phil’s case) by feathers. They even mimic the spinning kick line from “One” in “A Chorus Line,” and they perform it well.

“Duck Commander” is an adventurous, multi-course experience. The show shares the same menu as the most popular dishes in this city — including “Jersey Boys,” every Cirque show and all of the top headliners playing up and down the Strip. Maybe it’s too unusual to be ordered as “the usual,” but particularly adventurous diners should at least try the duck.

It ain’t bad.

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.

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