Show and Tell Post.. The Nerd: by Larry Shue

For my show and tell post, I read The Nerd by Larry Shue. If any of you have read his plays before, you could have guessed that THIS WAS THE MOST HILARIOUS PLAY THAT I HAVE EVER READ. There was not one point where I was bored while reading this play, and I don’t think that I have ever laughed as much as I did at Shue’s crazy characters and situations. This play premiered at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater in April 1981, and Shue actually starred in this production. It later ran on Broadway in 1987. It was also produced overseas in 1982 by the Royal Exchange Theatre Company in Manchester, England, and later had a run on West End.  (http://nouveau.home.comcast.net/~nouveau/shue/) You can purchase a copy of the script online. http://www.amazon.com/The-Nerd-Larry-Shue/dp/0822208113

The play opens on the Birthday of Willum Cubbert, an architect living in Terra Haute, Indiana. The first act comprises of William’s birthday dinner, and his guest list makes for an interesting mix of people. First, is Willum’s on and off again girlfriend, Tansy, who tries to make the whole special and fun for him. Then there’s his best friend, Axel, who is an extremely sarcastic play critic who likes to make fun of everyone he meets. The Waldegrave family is also in attendance. Warnock Waldegrave (aka Ticky) is Willum’s meand and easily angered boss. His wife, Clelia, is a sweet, but easily stressed woman who carries dishes with her to break whenever she gets too upset. Their son, Thor is a kid as mean as his father, and spends most of the first act locking himself in either Willum’s room or the hall closet. The party seems to be going well until the arrival of Rick Steadman, the man who saved Willum’s life in Vietnam. Rick continuously ruins the evening whether by saying innapropriate things, unintentionally insulting people, or even causing physical harm. After the party is ruined, he literally moved in with Willum who doesn’t want to say anything because the man saved his life. Finally, however, after Rick causes Willum to lose his job, the architect and his best friends try to coerce Rick into leaving with their crazy, fabricated traditions. This doesn’t work, however, and Willum loses control and kicks Rick out. Willum decides to follow Tansy as she moves to Washington, and we learn that the whole ordeal was a plot set up by axel and his friend (who pretended to be the real Rick S.) to keep Willum and Tansy together.

Shue makes really brilliant Dramaturgical choices in regards to this play. The first is his choice to use crazy characters. Every person that Shue creates for this play is so over-the-top, that it is almost hard for the audience to believe that they are real. They are crazy, but they are so fun and entertaining, that the audience willingly accepts them completely. Shue over-exaggerates the small quirks that everyone has, and everyone can see a bit of themselves in these characters. If the audience did not relate to the characters, then they would not appreciate the situations created in this play as much.
A second dramaturgical choice that Shue makes is his use of slapstick comedy. This show is very physical, and a lot of the actions performed by the characters are detailed in the script. Shue knew exactly how he wanted something to be acted. This show is full of people spinning, bumping into each other, and even poking each other in the eye. Shue was very descriptive about how he wanted his vision portrayed.