"Spunk and Heart" - Come Blow Your Horn Review

The theatre may be dark tonight for America's birthday, but that doesn't keep the great reviews from coming in!

Here's what Tom Witom for Sun-Time Media had to say:

Theater Review: Glenview’s Oil Lamp Theater gets to heart of Neil Simon comedy

Oil Lamp Theater’s trilogy of plays on American family life is off to an auspicious start with its production of Neil Simon’s 1961 comedy “Come Blow Your Horn.”

Under the direction of Keith Gerth, a solid cast clearly demonstrates that Simon’s first Broadway show still packs a lot of spunk and heart as it explores relationships between two adult siblings and their parents.

The theater’s restricted performance space suits this intimate character-driven play which is set in a tiny Manhattan bachelor pad that’s home to 33-year-old playboy Alan Baker (Chris Lysy).

Alan’s bohemian lifestyle and nonchalant work ethic get him in trouble with his boss and father, Mr. Baker (Rob Weinstein), who claims that during the six years he has worked for the wax-fruit company, Alan only put in two years at the office. Baker also insists that anyone over 30 and not married qualifies as a “bum” in his book.

Smooth-talking Alan finds himself stressed as he tries to finesse a busy love life with voluptuous but ditzy upstairs neighbor Peggy (Marisa Lerman) and girlfriend Connie (Amanda Meyer), who is pushing for a serious commitment.

Life becomes even more complicated when nebbishy Buddy (Grant Terzakis), who just turned 21, leaves a handwritten declaration-of-independence letter for his father and flees the family nest to live with his older brother and get his first taste of freedom.

The letter explains how Buddy sees no future in the wax-fruit business for himself but has ambitions to become a script writer or playwright. To which his father responds: “Plays can close. Television you can turn off. Wax lies in a bowl until you’re a hundred.”

Both parents, who rightly concerned that impressionable Buddy is on a slippery slope and a prime candidate for corruption, wage an emotionally charged campaign to get him to return home.

Weinstein’s comical characterization is spot on as a gruff, headstrong father with a sarcastic sense of humor, someone who wants the best for his sons — but only under his terms.

Denise Smolarek, in her portrayal of the neurotic, overly protective mother, steals the show in a hysterical scene when she gets flustered by a series of phone messages she can’t get straight and, for lack of a pencil, can’t write down.

Three weeks pass, and Buddy has become “a whole new person,” dating, drinking his brother’s booze, borrowing his brother’s socks and using Alan’s contacts for hard-to-get restaurant reservations.

Meanwhile, Alan — fired from his job, on the outs with Connie and increasingly appalled by his brother’s behavior — comes to a shocking self-realization that he’s more like his father than he ever thought possible. It’s a heartfelt moment.