'THE NERD' PRODUCES PLENTY OF LAUGHS FOR LESS.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

YOU WANT to wag a finger at the usually more adventurous Colony Theatre Company for staging a community theater bauble like ``The Nerd.'' Except David Rose's production of Larry Shue's unwanted intruder comedy is so deftly handled and so frequently hilarious that much is forgivable. And any eternal fans of the now-defunct NBC series ``3rd Rock From the Sun'' will want to hike it over to Burbank to see how winningly French Stewart handles a character several ticks more obnoxious than the daffy extraterrestrial he played on TV.

First produced in 1981, ``The Nerd'' is catnip to any theater company without the resources to put up ``The Man Who Came to Dinner.'' Shue's comedy has maybe a tenth the number of characters as the Kaufman and Hart favorite, and only two of Shue's ``Nerd''-lings are particularly interesting.

But director Rose, who staged ``Dinner'' for the Colony a few seasons back, as well as the equally madcap ``Fuddy Meers'' earlier this year, knows how to fashion a romp. The - comparatively - straight men and women to Stewart's titular loon aren't just good second bananas at the Colony. In certain cases, they just plain look funny.

``The Nerd'' isn't exactly filled with plot intricacies. Act 1, nerd arrives; Act 2, nerd is driven off. There's an 11th-hour twist - a goose really - and a lot of very broad physical comedy. Then again, when you see how much the cast of ``The Producers'' is heaving and sweating for even cheaper laughs, you realize what Rose, Stewart et al. have been able to pull off. And at about $60 less per ticket.

Anyway, in Terre Haute, Ind., meek nice-guy architect Willum Cubbert (played by Ed F. Martin) is homing in on nailing a major design project just as his gal pal Tansy (Faith Coley Salie) is about to take a job as a D.C. weather girl. On hand to crack wise is Willum's theater critic friend Axel Hammond (Kevin Symons), a character who, I suspect, becomes insufferable in the wrong actor's hands. Symons, who snaps off every quip with Oscar Wilde-ian panache, is splendid.

On the same night that the client and his family are coming by to square the deal, Willum gets an unexpected phone call from Rick Steadman (Stewart), a man to whom he owes his life. Seems Rick dragged an unconscious Willum out of a rice field in Vietnam. The two men have never met, but Rick has a standing offer to tread on Willum's welcome mat.

And tread he does. Arriving at the exact wrong time and wearing an alien costume, Rick Steadman is an embarrassing, boorish, socially maladroit boob who ruins everything he touches. Stewart sports a buzz cut and an ensemble that is Dilbert personified. His head retracts turtle-like into his shoulders, and a far-away look creeps into his horn-rim-covered eyes whenever Rick needs to tune out the world. The word clueless doesn't begin to describe how completely this character doesn't get it.

Fittingly, Stewart's arrival ratchets up the broad comedy several levels. By the second act, the seemingly sane trio of Willum, Tansy and Axel become barking lunatics in a not-so-clever ruse designed to send Rick packing.

The laughs are consistent, and not all come via outrageousness and pratfalls. Symons possesses great acerbic wit, and Cindy Warden is a scream as the client's schoolmarm wife. When stressed out, she requests ``something to break.'' She then wraps the destined-for-smithereens object in a napkin, produces a hammer from her purse and goes to town.

Yeah, that's the kind of humor we're dealing with here. So strike a blow for zaniness for the Colony. Next up, Lillian Hellman.

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

THE NERD - Three stars

Where: Colony Theatre, 555 N. Third St., Burbank.

When: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays; through July 6.

Tickets: $29 to $32. Call [phone].

In a nutshell: Nerd arrives, nerd wreaks havoc, nerd leaves. Audience laughs.

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Photo:

From left, Ed F. Martin, Jonathan Palmer and Cindy Warden support French Stewart (gesturing) in the Colony's production of ``The Nerd.''