Word: nerdly
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...that popular culture satirizes nerds, they are still a likable group. Although they are ostracized, their place in society is more secure than other fringe cultures. Both mocked and feared, most accounts are ultimately sympathetic and advocate their vindication. But Larry Shue's The Nerd is an exception. The play's nemesis terrorizes the characters for two acts. (I was about ready to round up a posse from the audience and bind and gag him.) As a comedy of manners, The Nerd show-cases various quirks and idiosyncrasies possessed by different classes. Everyone is weird, the play seems...
...after he settles down, the arriving guests quicken the pace. While the first act seems to flow from quip to quip, the second act is hurried: the clipped delivery leads the characters to overcompensate by projecting their voices rather than their wits. Had the characters been edgier, The Nerd could have suggested the macabre tones of "Neighbors" or an episode of "The Twilight Zone," but the play is strictly...
Finally, the real Nerd shows up in the form of one Rick Steadman (Daren Firestone). Willum invites him to his house because Steadman saved his life in Vietnam (shades of goody-goody Forrest Gump). Steadman's entrance is suspenseful because he wears a costume to conceal his identity. Tripping from one faux paux to the next and yet utterly naive about it, Steadman is the stereotypical nerd, but more abrasive, more annoying and goonier. He's a nerd's wet dream. Firestone sounds like Pee-Wee Herman with emphysema...
This story actually begins with an edgy, brainy nerd named Herbert Stempel (wonderfully played by John Turturro), who was a steady winner on Twenty- One. The trouble was that white-bread America couldn't identify with him. Enter Van Doren (played a little too stiffly by Ralph Fiennes), trying to pick up a few dollars to supplement his instructor's pay at Columbia University. He was a godsend. Not just any old Wasp, but the scion of arguably the nation's most distinguished literary family. His father was Mark Van Doren, Pulitzer- prizewinning poet and scholar; his mother...
...water-pants alert, idiots savants -- these descriptions sound like sour grapes from people who can't understand the tools of today's market." Randall E. Sekeres of Atlanta believes we aimed "for the cheap laugh." Chris Danielson of Houston wonders, "How can you endorse the use of the word nerd? Granted, the , supernerds may be engaging in unusual business practices, but that is no reason to deride their intellect. I am a high school honors student, and I have been called a nerd by people who are a lot dumber than I am -- and, believe me, I mean...