News & Reviews

'Nerd' back with a vengeance

By Paul Kolas Telegram and Gazette Reviewer

STURBRIDGE— You have to admire Stageloft Repertory Theater for its theatrical diversity, countering the recently concluded musical of “Don Quixote” with Larry Shue’s exquisitely daft comedy “The Nerd.” Not only that, but Jeremy Woloski is given carte blanche by director Edward Cornely’s wise casting to show his pliant acting range, going from the lovably calculating Sancho Panza to the insanity inducing title character of “The Nerd,” Rick Steadman, who saved the unconscious Willum Cubbert’s life during the Vietnam War.

Willum is an architect receiving a surprise birthday party from his frustrated girlfriend, Tansy, and his roommate, a playfully pompous drama critic named Axel. Tansy confides to Axel while Willum is in the kitchen that she’s mulling over a job offer in Washington, tired of waiting for Willum to take their relationship to the next level.

Invited to the party are Willum’s high strung boss, Warmock Waldgrave, his tenuously calm-appearing wife Clelia, and their misbehaving son Thor. Waldgrave owns eight hotels and wants the visionary Willum to strip down his architectural designs for a new hotel to a banal modernity. Clelia deals with her hellion son by smashing dishes to relieve stress. When Steadman shows up at the party in a clown costume, and immediately sets everyone on edge with his outlandish behavior, everyone’s patience becomes hopelessly unraveled.

Thor is frightened by the clown costume and runs for cover, intermittently traumatized for the remainder of the play. Clelia begins to smash dishes with more frequency. Desperation sets in when Steadman decides to move in with Willum, who feels sickeningly obligated to him for saving his life in Vietnam. By the time everyone plots to get rid of Steadman with a silly pagan ritual that he actually enjoys rather than abhors, the cottage cheese drenched Waldgrave is a heart attack waiting to happen.

It’s a comedy of wild unpredictability and escalating laughter, right down to its clever conclusion.

Everyone in the cast dives heartily into his or her role with the requisite variety of response to Steadman’s overbearing and intolerant presence.

Stacie Beland handles Tansy’s emotional ambivalence quite well. Cathy O’Brien’s Clelia is a bundle of frayed nerves rippling underneath her fragile tranquility.

John Monfredo plays Willum with an agreeably understated mix of alarm and despair, nicely complimenting Neal Martel’s urbane, witty and flamboyant Axel. Matthew J. Carr is ferociously funny as Waldgrave, his social graces reduced to frothing temper tantrums by Steadman’s relentless and merciless nerdism. Joe Wellwood, who will share the role of Thor with Kayla Moquin, ably transforms Thor from superbrat to whimpering, psychologically-impaired delinquent.

Then there is Jeremy Woloski’s Rick Steadman, which is something to truly marvel at. If there is ever a remake of “The Revenge of the Nerds,” here is the actor to lead the charge.

From his taped horn-rimmed glasses to his lisping insistence on playing every party game according to his set of rules, Woloski’s Steadman is a creature to inspire dread and laughs in equal measure. Every obnoxious gesture, nasally intonation, and oddly sinister chuckle paints a composite portrait of repellent hilarity.

His perfectly atonal performance is reason enough to plan a cozy drive to Sturbridge.