CRITICS, AUDIENCE AT ODDS OVER ‘NERD’

Dumb plays can be a panic--if not for the critics, for the audience. That seems to apply to the late Larry Shue’s “The Nerd” at Broadway’s Helen Hayes Theatre.

First seen in London in ‘84, this concerns a man who almost wishes that he hadn’t had his life saved in Vietnam by the jerk of the title, once he gets to know him.

The plot (including the old joke about the drama critic who writes his review before the show) sounds unlikely, and the gags, according to Mary Campbell of the Associated Press, range from funny to stupid--which draw the biggest laughs of all opening night.

The New York Post’s Clive Barnes said that the play made him personally want to run screaming up the aisle, but that the audience seemed convulsed. Howard Kissell of the Daily News was reminded of high-school cafeteria humor. Frank Rich of the New York Times thought that Shue had provided some “aces” material in the first act, but that things got pretty infantile in the second.

Frederick Winship of UPI called it “a one-joke farce whose future on Broadway depends on the number of TV sitcom fans who can stretch their powers of concentration to a time span of more than two hours.”

But everybody liked the cast, especially Robert Joy as the nerd, in his “poison-green trousers and short-sleeved shirt, its breast pocket stuffed with a ballpoint pen holder” (Winship.)

South Coast Repertory had a great success with Shue’s “The Foreigner.” Can “The Nerd” be far behind?

We can put up with all the British actors on PBS, but how about some reciprocity? The Times Literary Supplement reports on an ITV production of William Luce’s Emily Dickinson show, “The Belle of Amherst,” starring . . . Claire Bloom.

IN QUOTES: Mort Sahl, now playing at the Henry Fonda Theatre: “I think the ‘80s make the ‘50s look heroic.”