An assured ‘Nerd’

Killed in a small-plane crash at age 39, playwright Larry Shue left behind a small but enduring legacy of sharply comic plays. Since its premiere in 1981, Shue’s “The Nerd” has been produced widely and internationally. It’s easy to see why. The play combines low humor, deft wit and the kind of broadly comic characterizations that actors the world over would sacrifice their birthrights to play.

That’s not to say this is deathless drama. Rich but slight, the play’s wedding-cake plot is a towering but solid structure upon which one-liners, double-entendres and sight gags are layered in sticky abundance. Fortunately, in his staging at the Colony, director David Rose assembles the confection with a light but firm hand.

The play is set in 1980, as evidenced by Bradley Kaye’s subtly dated set and A. Jeffrey Schoenberg’s inconspicuously retro costumes. Willum Cubbert (Ed F. Martin), an architect in Terre Haute, Ind., is a sterling guy whose biggest character flaw is a lack of “gumption.” Dismayed by Willum’s spinelessness, his girlfriend (Faith Coley Salie) is leaving him for greener pastures -- a job as a weathergirl in Washington, D.C. That, coupled with the fact that hotel magnate Warnock Waldgrave (Jonathan Palmer) has altered Willum’s latest design into something that looks like an air conditioner, has put Willum into a serious funk.

But Willum learns what true misery really is with the arrival of Rick Steadman (French Stewart), the guy who saved Willum’s life in Vietnam but whom Willum, unconscious at the time, has never met. Willum’s hero turns out to be a painfully clueless goofball who drives everybody to distraction and beyond.

The role of Rick requires pitch-perfect comic timing or the leaning tower collapses. Stewart, perhaps best known as a series regular on the long-running television show “3rd Rock From the Sun,” is an inspired casting choice. Stewart honed his comic craft on L.A.’s small theater scene, most notably in the droll and acid plays of Justin Tanner. His performance here is broad as a barn door but rigorously believable. In fact, Stewart renders his nerdish character with such truthfulness that the play’s surprise ending seems a bit of a cheat, albeit a clever one.

And Stewart isn’t the only one with terrific timing. This evening is very much about the acting, and the sum of all these performances equals a hoot and a half. Martin, who played the title role in the Colony’s “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” once again excels at sweet haplessness. Palmer is humorously humorless; Salie is a straight woman who can rattle off a scathing quip or two; and Kevin Symons is formidably tart as Axel, Willum and Tansy’s curmudgeonly theater critic pal. Cindy Warden is a scream as Clelia, Warnock Waldgrave’s pinched and cowering wife, while even young Justin M. Bretter plays Clelia and Warnock’s spoiled son with the panache of an old pro.

*

‘The Nerd’

Where: Colony Theatre, 555 N. 3rd St., Burbank

When: Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 3 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m.

Ends: July 6

Price: $29-$35

Contact: (818) 558-7000

Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes