THEATER REVIEWS : ‘The Nerd’: Victim of a Mugging

The late playwright Larry Shue wrote three charming comedies in his brief career. Each is slight, slim, and deceptive in its simplicity. It can be very tempting for a director to want to help them. And unnecessary.

That’s what happened with Denise Kenney’s staging of Shue’s “The Nerd,” at the Westminster Community Theatre. She has prodded her actors to put too much “dressing,” to use George M. Cohan’s word, on top of their performances. Her slightly leisurely tempos (for a comedy) might work if her cast members had been guided toward naturalism instead of the surface television tone in which they seem to revel.

Shue’s plot is a one-joke affair, and the joke comes in the last three minutes of the play. What goes before is often funny but is based on a fairly serious premise: Willum (Randy Jones) is a well-to-do architect whose life was saved in Vietnam by another grunt, Rick Steadman (Philip Weitzman, whom Willum never met.

Willum contacted Rick by mail and swore he would do anything to repay Rick for his valor. Rick’s unexpected arrival, with luggage, at Willum’s apartment turns Willum’s life upside down and inside out. In spite of his gratitude, Willum realizes that Rick, the nerd, must go. With the help of Willum’s best friend, gay theater critic Axel (Norman Wilson), the nerd’s removal is effected, Willum’s relationship with his girlfriend Tansy (Nicole Pano is cemented, and all ends happily.

Kenney has allowed most her actors to overplay, without building solid characterizations within Shue’s framework. Like all comedy, Shue’s depends on the honesty and reality of the performances. He is funny enough without sight gags and mugging.

Jones and Pano barely skim the surfaces of their roles. Greg Z. Newcomb and Jennifer Boudreau, as a hotel builder and his wife, are not restrained and dignified enough to make their situation funny, and Veronica Ehrhardt, as their bratty daughter, is merely the caricature of a bratty kid.

Wilson alone maintains some semblance of the naturalism that is at the basis of Shue’s humor. At the other end of the scale, Weitzman’s nerd is outrageous and outlandish, posturing and ridden with cliche. Willum must honestly believe that Rick saved his life, but that seems ridiculous when he is confronted by Weitzman’s cartoon.

*

“The Nerd,” Westminster Community Theatre, 7272 Maple St., Westminster. Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Oct. 7. $10. (714) 527-5546. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.

Randy Jones: Willum Cubbert

Norman Wilson: Axel Hammond

Nicole Pano: Tansy McGinnis

Philip Weitzman: Rick Steadman

Greg Z. Newcomb: Warnock Waldgrave

Jennifer Boudreau: Clelia Waldgrave

Mark D. Lyen: Voice Overs

A Westminster Community Theatre production of a comedy by Larry Shue, produced by Sandi Newcomb, directed by Denise Kenney. Set design/stage manager: Mark D. Lyen. Costumes: Sandi Newcomb. Lighting/sound design: Cheri Stumpf. Technical direction: Jeff Crumley.