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The Nerd
By Larry Shue
Directed by Nate White
Produced by Rogue Theater
At City Lit
1020 W. Bryn Mawr
Chicago, IL
Call 773-450-0591, tickets $12 - $15
Wednesdays thru Saturdays at 7:30 PM
Sundays at 3 PM
Running time 2 hours with intermission
Through January 29, 2006
The Nerd flattens out as dated farce
Rogue Theater Company usually produces quality plays but not this time. Why pick The Nerd? It is a dated, thin, not too funny farce filled with stock characters. You know a show is in trouble when the actors continually push too hard for laughs and no one in the audience responds..
Larry Shue’s script is based on the fact that Willum (Gordon Chow), a wishy-washy sort owes his life to Rick Steadman (Ryan Young) who dragged Willum out of a rice paddy in Viet Nam as both were wounded. Add the girl fiend Tansy (Lisa Stran White) and the always present drama critic, the swishy Axel (Dan Foss in a sharp performance) and we have the typical sit-com players. When Clelia and Warnock, Willum’s boss come for dinner, enter the nerd (Steadman) to shake things up.
Unfortunately comedy, and especially farce, needs well timed movement, quick witted responses and stage chemistry. These players demonstrated none of the above. They simply tried too hard. The result was a noisy show devoid of laughter. The main trouble here is the dated script. Filled with characters we’ve seen much too often and situations that didn’t produce enough humor, the show unfolded as boring and trite.
I never cared nor like the Willum character so whatever happened to him didn’t matter, therefore no empathy, no laughter. The nerd character was poorly written and Ryan Young’s take on him just got on my nerves. Maybe I’ve seen too many farces but I didn’t think there were many laughs in this show. Rogue Theater is a quality troupe, so we’ll forgive them this mistake. I don’t think master comics could make The Nerd funny. This show needs to be archived.
Not Recommended
Tom Williams
Tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments
Talk Theatre in Chicago Radio show
January 11, 2006
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