By Katherine Beeson
Live theater is back and SummerStage opened its long-awaited 2021 season with Larry Shue’s comedy/farce “The Nerd.” The production is directed by Dustin J. Martin.
The plot: Willum, a slightly-uptight architect in Terra Haute, Indiana, is on the verge of losing his girlfriend, Tansy, who is taking a job as a television meteorologist in Washington, DC. Tansy and another friend, theater critic Axel, arrange a surprise birthday party for Willum, even though Willum had already invited a client and his family to dinner. Suddenly an uninvited guest, Rick Steadman, appears. Rick had saved Willum’s life in Vietnam (although they never met) and had decided to take Willum up on his offer to come visit any time. Rick is the “nerd” of the play’s title, complete with tape on his glasses, flood pants, shirt sticking out of his zipper and uncouth bearing. The party is thrown into complete chaos.
James Stevens as Rick plays the title character with a nice touch, which isn’t easy as the man is more a predictable caricature than an actual character. Scott Fudali is appropriately strait-laced as Willum and makes us believe that he will put up with Rick forever because he owes him his life. Nicholas Callan is fun to watch as he plays Axel, a cool observer who watches the madness unfold in front of him and yet willingly joins in the fun because he has “a few minutes before I must leave for the theater.” Patrice Hood as Tansy takes a bit before she relaxes into her part -- her opening dialogue with Axel seemed to be an actress saying her lines instead of a person having a real conversation. Jim Mallman, Stephanie Demyum Smith and Luke Krieser round out the cast as the Waldgrave family. (Luke played the obnoxious kid and was quite good at it!)
There must be an unwritten rule somewhere in this state that on any given weekend, a Wisconsin theater group must present a Larry Shue play. (Shue was actually born in New Orleans, grew up in Kansas and Illinois but was a playwright in residence at the Milwaukee Rep when his two plays were published. So that is Shue’s connection to Wisconsin and apparently this tie remains as strong as ever.) I don’t find Larry Shue to be as clever a playwright as many people do, but I can say that this creative cast made the most of what Shue gave them – which actually wasn’t much. There was no reason to include a bratty, screaming child in this show at all – a child whose parents don’t seem to notice that he has been missing for more than a half hour and was absent from dinner. Another needless point in the story is that the wife continually feels the urge to smash plates when she is stressed.
Shue also makes a number of outdated references, including twice mentioning Marjorie Main and her gumption. (Marjorie Main -- Anyone? Anyone? — was the actress who played Ma Kettle in the “Ma and Pa Kettle” series of movies in the 1940s and 50s and had died five years before this play was written. I have no idea if she had gumption or not.)
This show starts out slow, which gave me time to notice some staging oddities: Why does Willum not have a table yet his girlfriend serves all this food? Why does only one actor appear to have a fork? Why do some characters run shoeless outdoors in November in Indiana?
Nicholas Callan Haubner and Scott Fudali in SummerStage’s “The Nerd.”
There is a scene in this show that is absolutely hilarious and occurs in Act II, when in a desperate attempt to get Rick to leave, Willum, Tansy and Axel decide to show Rick “their ways” and perform an intricate pagan pig-god chant and dance. Truly funny.
A costuming note: If you are putting a man in a tuxedo, no matter in real life or on the stage, it simply can NOT be two sizes too big – especially if the character is supposed to be urbane and sophisticated. Opt for a suit instead. Also, a prop mishap led to a confusing moment that was supposed to be funny.
“The Nerd” is a safe choice for any theater group as it will get some laughs (and it did on opening night.) But it is also getting stale, corny by today’s audiences and done to death.
“The Nerd” at SummerStage runs through July 3