Theater Review: ‘Nerve’ mostly enervating

Cory Johnson
Contributing Writer

Love is painful, especially in theater.

But Friday’s Shafer Street Alliance Laboratory Theatre production of “Nerve,” a black comedy from student director Thomas Bell, was neither forgiving to its characters or its audience.

The show appears to be an exploration on the concept of modern love; what is love in a society that is too busy to find it the old fashioned way?

The hour-long show was evocative and brilliantly awkward at points but fell short of excellence for the majority of the show, at turns either poorly written or directed in a basely pathological way that left its audience exhausted by the story’s lackluster climax and ending.

The two characters, Susan and Elliot, played by sophomore theatre performance major Emily Marsh and second-year graduate student in directing and theatre pedagogy Alan Vollmer, meet as Internet dates in a nameless bar somewhere in New York City. For the first five to 10 minutes, the two talk about first kisses: what they mean and how, after them, one could know if the relationship was love or not.

For the next 30 minutes the story becomes an awkward interpretive dance – literally, as Susan dances to physically express her emotions every other time she goes to the bathroom – of poorly written wit and exaggerated facial expressions that masquerade as an analysis of modern romance.

The story makes a polar shift when we are told that the Susan has been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, which hinders her ability to properly form and commit to relationships, and the audience realizes that Elliot also has this disorder.

This information invalidates all formerly received information as it was given through an unreliable lense. After this point, audience members could spend the last 25 to 30 minutes of the play trying to figure out what it’s actually about or accepting the bludgeoning of emotions as the actors are put through the ringer: more dancing, bathroom sex, pouring feeling into awkward lines directed to be given in an palpably inorganic manner, deep explanations that feel a scene late and physical abuse.

With this tirade of feeling going on, the climax fails. It’s obvious where it is, but the emotion that comes with it is overshadowed by the previous onslaught of poorly set up discovery and revelation that pile on to the confusion of the overall theme of the play.

By the end of production, the characters, actors, and parts of the audience are exhausted. In her last solo dance, Susan submits to her disorder and the disorder of Elliot, both feigning the real emotion of love and coming together at the end in a languidly passionate kiss.

But what does that say about modern love? Is it even comparable as both characters are not in control of there emotional states? A more forgiving perspective might say that their disorder is a metaphor for love – finicky, extreme, complicated – and the displayed love was actually a representation of modern society, too crazy and obsessive to actually know what love is. But how could one be sure?

Through an unnaturally discomforting interpretation, sloppily written lines and an emotional maelstrom that leaves an anti-climactic climax, it’s hard to say.

The actors did their job well, with great chemistry between Marsh and Vollmer, who look as if they were only following direction. But that raises the question: Did this production fall short at its direction, only bringing out the flaws in the script, or was it the script that left no room for the direction to make the play readable?

1 Comment

  1. You are mistaken in your identification of the actor Alan Vollmer. Alan Vollmer is also a second-year performance major while his older brother Phil is a second-year graduate student in directing and theatre pedagogy.

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