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"Nerds' at PTC (first review)
Dan Rottenberg
Calling Bialystock & Bloom
DAN ROTTENBERG
First, the good news: For the first time since How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1961), someone has created a musical comedy about real business, as opposed to show business. Now the bad news: The new musical reminds us why musicals about real business are so few and far between.
Nerds is based on the twin propositions that (a) the saga of billionaire computer geeks offers rich theatrical material because, after all, computers touch everybody’s lives, and (b) relentless high spirits and a rousing score can compensate for puerile humor and an absence of real dramatic conflict. Both propositions strike me as dubious.
Computers do indeed occupy a central position in 21st-Century life; but then, so do microwave ovens, TV sets and clutch-driven automobiles. Has any theatrical promoter (with the possible exception of Bialystock & Bloom in The Producers) ever contemplated a show about the life of Percy Spencer, Vladimir Zworykin or Elwood Haynes? Some great stories lend themselves to the stage, and others don’t.
The eternal adolescent conflict between nerds and jocks was well-mined in the 1984 Hollywood flick Revenge of the Nerds, but here the basic conflict pits two nerds— Bill Gates of Microsoft and Steve Jobs of Apple— against each other, without giving the audience cause to root for either one. If you’ve ever wondered why Microsoft rose and Apple fell, or whatever happened to IBM or Netscape— well, this show won’t tell you. In Nerds, Gates and Jobs succeed not by developing revolutionary products but the old-fashioned way: by stealing ideas and talent, sometimes at gunpoint.
The lyrics and dialogue rely heavily on predictable double-entendres equating computer functions with sex (“I’m going to hack into your system and get some anti-virus software”) or just plain sophomoric word play (“I’d be happy to give you a hand, Jobs”). Boil this material down to ten minutes and you have a cute skit for Saturday Night Live. Stretch it out to two hours, as Nerds does, and you have torture worthy of Abu Ghraib.
Sometimes a weak book can be rescued by scintillating performers. The energetically cute and charming Chandra Lee Schwartz, as a nerd groupie (she digs guys for their operating systems), lit up the stage whenever she appeared. But the best that can be said of the rest of the cast— led by Jim Poulos as Gates, Charlie Pollock as Jobs, Andrew Cassese as Paul Allen, and David Rossmer as Steve Wozniak— is that they’re appropriately nerdy.
As I sat through opening night, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d seen this show before. And then I remembered: Last year, with Adrift in Macao, Philadelphia Theatre Company produced a musical comedy that was every bit as self-congratulatory, repetitive and pointless as Nerds. Obviously, somebody at PTC has a soft spot for sophomoric musicals. Whoever that person is, he/she should be dispatched to Iraq with Bush’s forthcoming “surge.” As soon as the Sunnis and Shi’ites are exposed to these shows, they’ll realize they have much bigger problems to worry about than fighting each other (and us), and the whole nasty business over there will resolve itself in no time.
To read a review by Steve Cohen, click here.
To read a response, click here.
DAN ROTTENBERG
First, the good news: For the first time since How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1961), someone has created a musical comedy about real business, as opposed to show business. Now the bad news: The new musical reminds us why musicals about real business are so few and far between.
Nerds is based on the twin propositions that (a) the saga of billionaire computer geeks offers rich theatrical material because, after all, computers touch everybody’s lives, and (b) relentless high spirits and a rousing score can compensate for puerile humor and an absence of real dramatic conflict. Both propositions strike me as dubious.
Computers do indeed occupy a central position in 21st-Century life; but then, so do microwave ovens, TV sets and clutch-driven automobiles. Has any theatrical promoter (with the possible exception of Bialystock & Bloom in The Producers) ever contemplated a show about the life of Percy Spencer, Vladimir Zworykin or Elwood Haynes? Some great stories lend themselves to the stage, and others don’t.
The eternal adolescent conflict between nerds and jocks was well-mined in the 1984 Hollywood flick Revenge of the Nerds, but here the basic conflict pits two nerds— Bill Gates of Microsoft and Steve Jobs of Apple— against each other, without giving the audience cause to root for either one. If you’ve ever wondered why Microsoft rose and Apple fell, or whatever happened to IBM or Netscape— well, this show won’t tell you. In Nerds, Gates and Jobs succeed not by developing revolutionary products but the old-fashioned way: by stealing ideas and talent, sometimes at gunpoint.
The lyrics and dialogue rely heavily on predictable double-entendres equating computer functions with sex (“I’m going to hack into your system and get some anti-virus software”) or just plain sophomoric word play (“I’d be happy to give you a hand, Jobs”). Boil this material down to ten minutes and you have a cute skit for Saturday Night Live. Stretch it out to two hours, as Nerds does, and you have torture worthy of Abu Ghraib.
Sometimes a weak book can be rescued by scintillating performers. The energetically cute and charming Chandra Lee Schwartz, as a nerd groupie (she digs guys for their operating systems), lit up the stage whenever she appeared. But the best that can be said of the rest of the cast— led by Jim Poulos as Gates, Charlie Pollock as Jobs, Andrew Cassese as Paul Allen, and David Rossmer as Steve Wozniak— is that they’re appropriately nerdy.
As I sat through opening night, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d seen this show before. And then I remembered: Last year, with Adrift in Macao, Philadelphia Theatre Company produced a musical comedy that was every bit as self-congratulatory, repetitive and pointless as Nerds. Obviously, somebody at PTC has a soft spot for sophomoric musicals. Whoever that person is, he/she should be dispatched to Iraq with Bush’s forthcoming “surge.” As soon as the Sunnis and Shi’ites are exposed to these shows, they’ll realize they have much bigger problems to worry about than fighting each other (and us), and the whole nasty business over there will resolve itself in no time.
To read a review by Steve Cohen, click here.
To read a response, click here.
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