Play Produced "COME BLOW YOUR HORN n

by NellSCmon

Tony Rush discusses his produc­tion for LiLtle IIea1.h and Potters Baro&DS. It came as a bit of a shock to me to find that a Nell Simon comedy was a period piece. The script sets the time as ' the present' b u t 1n order not to tamper with the uthor's dialogue, we decided to

fIx on the early 60's. We did ch ange one line, howcver. Buddy's rt"quest for a Scotch and Gl.nger Ale (these days a fatrly common mix) Is no longer funny so we changed 11 to a Scotch and Bitter Lemon . We 'found more. difficulty In eire sing the set than the per­fonn rs - our wardrobe con­tained some excelIenl costumes of the period bu t we had d iffi ­culty in Bnd ing c.l960 furn.!­ture. In the end we hired matnly bamboo furniture and d ressed the set wi th pictu res wi th an American flavo ur - vintage planes eLe. A lot of the action takes place near the fron door and If (like ou rs) the ou tside of your door can be seen don't for ­get to put a n umber on It. Then: were no oulofthe ord inary light­ing effecls bu t when the curtain went up on an u nlil stage a t the beginning of the play our light ­ing di rector introduced a flash­ing light, coming from outside the downstage left window , to

Amateur Stage March 1990

simulate a neon sign, whl h he fad t'd once Alan had 'turned on' the light and action began. Make u p (depending u pon the real age of the actors playing the parents) Is straight and presents no problems. Care should be taken not to make Mr. Baker too old - he's only 58 (Mrs Baker says it was thetr 37 th wedding anniversary - Buddy says "you were married when you were 2J").

'Come Blow Your Hom " like most of the author's works, Is based on the theme that people are fu nny. The basic plo t con­cems the Bakel' famlly , father and two sons - w ho all work In the family waxed fruit business - and mother. Although there Is

no reference In the scrip l thal the family Is J ewish It is obvious, from the dialogue, that it Is. We took care not to Insert any extra

"my lUes' Just to cross the t's bu l jus t allowed the d ialogue to give the ImpressIon. This only ap­plies to mother and father and can be Justified by the argument that many Immigran t paren ts keep their ethnic ac~ents

whereas the children adopt the language of thetr b trthplace - in this case, New York. The other two important charac ­te rs are both Alan's girl friends; Peggy from u pstairs , an Indc­pendently weal thy girl waiting to be discovered by a show busi­ness produ ce r; and Connie, a not too success fu l s inge r, whose absences on commercial tours

give Alan a fatrly free rein. There Is one o ther m inute Wa lk­on 'part a t the close of the play which s hou ldn't be undervalued

production - just as the curtain falls. At the begining of the play it is obvious that the elder of the two Baker so ns, Alan, (33) Is having a great time wi th his little black book full of the telephone nu m ­bers of gorgeous girls, like Peggy from u pstalrs. All the same he' puzzled, with alI that he's got going for him, by h is deepening relationship wi th Connie who, so far, has held on to her virtu , At the end of Act II Connie leaves town for 3 weeks, without letting h1m know where she is going and on his entrance at the be-

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ginning of Act III he's depressed an d looking a little dishevelled. Care must be taken not to allow h is 'mood' to drag down thc play though and the 'new' Bu ddy must help lift theactlon with his general high splrlts foUowing his ema n Ipatio n from paren tal control. Alan should aim for a light louchand play. for the first two Acts at least. with engaging chann. Peggy (22). the girl from u p­stairs, need to be play ed as a trusting innocen t (this Is a direct contradiction o f the facts as. at the start oftbe play , she has just come back fro m a winter sports weekend with Alan where th.:.'Y were cooped up in their room because "we had that bad break in the wea ther " "you mean all that snow'?") - s he appears to believe everything Alan tells her. The moment. in Act II. when she puts her hand on Buddy's knee should not be given any more emphasis lhan If she's placed it on his ann. It should be reo moved in the same unselfcon ­sdous way an the line "Life is funny isn't it?" to enab le Buddy. whose reac tion to this s ituaUon is thc source of the fun, to rise and move across the s tage. Pcggy and Alan open the play but s he is only in fo r a shor t time and therefore, has to put her character over immediately. When she first meets ·Mr. Mannheim' her line a bou t look­ing "a mess" is funny ifdelivered as an anxious q ues tion.. 21-year o ld Buddy's character crcates comedy from the situ ­a tion that he wants to emu late his elder brothe r and get away fro m the family home. The s(''ene where he explains h i viewpoint to Alan is very funny and a couple of times, oddly touching­'sure he 's stubborn and old ~oned but he means well"

and Alan's reply "I know, kid, I understand" should be deliv­ered wi th a great d eal of Sincer­Ity by them both as it helps to sh ow the 'mce' side of their characters. Buddy's trans fo r ­mation from the warned you ng man ofActs I & 11 to the clone of

many funny Hnes but she should be played with a great deal ofwarmth so that the audl ­ence Is sympathetic to her cause and happy that Alan finaily and Sincerely, asks her to marry him. Father (58) Is an eccentric (he never removes his hat until, briefly, In the last few minutes of the play) who thinks Alan Is a lost cause "is he manied?" "no" "then he's a bum" and is shocked when Buddy appears to be follOwing In his brother's foot­steps. His en trances lift the play and his eJdts all go with a bang but he m u st not be played all bluff a nd bluster. There are some qui te moving momen ts - in

Act II, for lnstanee when h a sks Buddy "You need any money?" and In Act Tn when he finally removes h is hat in Connie's honour.

table searching for dus t). The highlight of her performance should be her 'battle' with the telephone in Act II. The majority of the laughs come from her reaction to what Is being said by the caller; on her Une "This Is Alan's mother" (because of Alan's reputation with women) they obviously reply "You're kidding" . Therefo re , her re­sponse "Why shou ld I kid about a thing like that?" sh ould take on a s lightly puzzled air. If the ttmlng is right, the audience will know a ctually what is being said by the caller. We bad the tele­phone on a long lead (a ll the actors were ablc to 'use' It as a prop and not be trapped in one position) to enable Mother to be almost centre stage, The fruit­less search for tlu: penCil should be controlled and she mustn't lose s ight of the fact that some-

Alan in Act III is highlighted by the line "Don't you know you can be arrested for having such a sexy voice?" and he should say it exac tly as Alan does in Act I. Buddy has the task of explain ­ing who docs wbat a s far as the bus iness and family are con­cerned bu t his line "I just can't ge t excited a bout making wax fru it" Is pa r ticularly Important ­if this line is n ot heard by the

a udience they won' t understand m u eh of the ensuing dialogue, Connie (24). wants to marry Alan b ut is u naware of what goes on during her regular ab­sences - she only catches on very s lowly to the facts during her flr.> t scene with Alan when he starts to back off rather rapidly after her "become a housewife" speech . Connie d oesn't have too

Mother (mid to late 50's) is a bundle of contradictions - "just let me sit a few minutes" and immediately rises and crosses to centre stage (getting ready to run her finger along the coffee

one Is waiting for her a t the other end of the line. Weonlyputafew pens and pencils in a pot on top of the telephone table (not two dozen as described in the script] so that Buddy picks it up and quite caSUally. selects a pen to wri te the note to Peggy - 'this is a typical Neil Simon 'delayed ac ­tion' joke and was much a ppre­ciated by our audiences. Much of the L'Omedy of this play arises from the situation that it's seldom the person expected who appears a t the front door even to the last moment when in comcs the much talked about but until now, unseen Aunt Gussie (lIsteci in the script as a visitor). S he is only in for about two seconds before the final curtain but we dressed her with care - including a hat with a ve il! 0

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