Come Blow Your Horn

Come Blow Your Horn (1961), a comedy by Neil Simon. [Brooks Atkinson Theatre, 677 perf.] Buddy Baker ( Warren Berlinger) appears suddenly at the apartment of his brother Alan ( Hal March), having run away from their parents' home on his twenty‐first birthday. Like his older brother, Buddy wants the fun and freedom his domineering Jewish parents deny him. Both young men still work for their father ( Lou Jacobi) who shows up hot on his son's trail. He is, in his own sarcastic way, understanding: “You work very hard two days a week and you need a five‐day weekend. That's normal.” The rest of the play is essentially a comic family feud, with the father firing his sons, but ultimately taking them back and accepting Alan's choice of a bride and Buddy's desire to live away from home. While complaining that the comedy was repetitive, Louis Kronenberger nevertheless felt, “It did squat head and shoulders above its all too recumbent rivals. It managed to keep going, it had some fresh and funny lines, it had some diverting scenes and characters.” Simon's first produced play, it began a series of successes that marked him as the most knowing light comedy writer of his generation.