Under the top

Colonial's juvenile Nerd

by Bill Rodriguez

THE NERD. By Larry Shue. Directed by Harland Metzer. At Colonial Theatre through August 2.

The schlemiel is a useful fixture in more than Yiddish theater. He was taking sprat falls in 16th-century commedia dell'arte and will probably be picking his nose on the 26th-century hologram stage. Larry Shue's The Nerd, at the Colonial Theatre in Westerly, is one of the most recent incarnations.

Gangly, geeky, thick as a brick, Rick Steadman (Jay Bodin) could give nebbish lessons to a Steve Martin character. The set-up is good. Rick makes a surprise visit to a man whose life he saved in Vietnam, so no matter how obnoxious he gets he's likely to get away with it. The guy he descends upon is architect Willum Cubbert (Mark Irish). They have never met before -- Cubbert was dragged to safety unconscious -- so the welcome to Terra Haute, Indiana, is all the more hearty.

Cubbert is in the midst of some turmoil himself, both personally and professionally. His girlfriend Tansy McGinnis (Dee Ann Newkirk) is going to leave in a week for a job as weather girl on a D.C. TV station, and he wants her to stay. As unrewarding work goes, it has him grumbling through a project designing a hotel that looks like a shoebox because the client likes things plain.

Rick arrives in fine style. The occasion is Willum's 34th birthday party, but Rick thinks it's a Halloween party, so he comes costumed as a towering green Godzilla. This scares the stuffing out of the bratty son (Brian Abbiati) of the architect's hotel mogul client (Bucky Walsh), so the mistake does prove useful. There's a funny exchange early on that sets a wry tone for many misunderstandings to follow: After introductions, Rick compliments the hotel owner on his businessman "costume" and his wife (Linda MacCluggage) for her funny schoolteacher getup, "all stooped" and shy. (A

running gag has her asking for "something to break" when thepressure gets too much, and running off to smash a saucer or two offstage.) A snide observer of all this is friend Axel Hammond (BoB Knapp), a theater critic and "classic curmudgeon," in the words of Tansy.

The nerd is the kind of guy who if you say, "Excuse me?" when you don't understand what he says, replies "Sure," with a tolerant shrug. When deviled eggs are served, he's liable to pipe up about them inside some bird a few hours ago. Yet Willum has sworn to him that for the rest of Rick's life he will always have someone to go to in time of need. But after a few days, Willum is desperate to drive him away. Their method is to introduce Rick to the quaint Terre Haute rituals and customs he'll have to get used to if he stays: bringing down light planes with shotguns for sport, "pork dancing" with slabs of meat, not serving dinner until they stare at an apple core till it turns brown. Needless to say, the ruse doesn't work.

Unfortunately, neither does the play. Directed by Harland Meltzer, Bodin is a hoot in a role where he can't go over the top because there is no top. Such silliness is a Platonic Ideal that will never be reached, no matter how many arrows are worn through heads. But he is handicapped by a story with undeveloped relationships, one that telegraphs what's going to unfold (except for a central surprise). More damaging, the other actors are allowed to mug and gape in response to the comical intruder, which puts a damper on the humor. An outlandish character is funnier when he stands in contrast to everybody else, when they're appalled rather than goggle-eyed. When we in the audience get to decide what's funny instead of being instructed, actors can be surprised at how much we can find.

There's nothing wrong with juvenile humor. It just takes some grown-up techniques to pull it off well.