"Come Blow Your Horn" at the University of Great Falls, Nov. 9

Taryn Judah and Tim Stoddard in Come Blow Your Horn. 

Last night I watched the UGF production of "Come Blow Your Horn." It's an entertaining, albeit slightly flawed, show.
First let's get into what I thought worked well and why I feel is worth purchasing a ticket to see. If you're not aware of the plot, I'm not going to go much into it, but you can read up on it here.

The show is directed by Ed Moran and stars UGF students Glen Weeks, Payton Henley and Taryn Judah, UGF alumni Janette Conley and community members Tim Stoddard and Sarah Hood.
Moran and Michael Gilboe together did a great job of casting the roles. Each piece fit well and the on-stage chemistry made it easy to get lost in the story of these fallible characters.

Glen and Tim, the lead characters, especially did a fine job with their dialogue-heavy parts. They hardly ever fumbled a line, and if they did it was very quick and hardly noticeable, almost as if it was written that way.
I think some of the funniest parts of the show, for me, involved Janette's answering the telephone what seems like a dozen times and her inability to find a pencil despite there being a jar with 5 or 6 pencils visible to the audience.
It might not sound that interesting describing it, but once you see it's execution, or if you're familiar with that part of the play, you'll understand it's brilliance. Conley for her part did a great job of playing the typical Jewish-sounding mother from Manhattan.
 Her accent, too, was by far the best of the bunch, which isn't to say there was a bad accent in the show. I've heard some really bad accents at other shows and was pleasantly surprised at how well they were done this time around.

Janette Conley in "Come Blow Your Horn"

While Weeks and Stoddard were the leads, for me the women stole the show. It was by far the most fun whenever Sarah, Janette and Taryn were on stage. You couldn't help but start to long for them to get back up there when they were gone.
They also play three distinctly different characters which is a credit to their skill as actors and the well-written script from Neil Simon.
I also loved how Payton, who played the brothers' father, has a chance to show both his soft side and his hard-ass side. Too many times in plays and movies we see one-dimensional supporting characters who only have one emotion throughout the entire show. This script has some of that, but a few of the supporting characters get to show their complexities that real human beings are capable of feeling.
Finally the set and the costumes were well-done, also. A bad set or bad costumes can make a show look bad. The set pieces, costumes and lighting weren't all that noticeable, mostly because they didn't have to be, but they didn't take anything away from it either.
If anything the apartment seemed a little TOO big, but the actors used nearly all of the space and it never took anything away from the performance.

If I was going to nit-pick, I'd say that because they had a piano on stage, they could have had someone perform on it, which is similar to the trope "If you introduce a gun in act one, you better have somebody fire it in act three."
Nobody sat at the piano and it was not a central part of the apartment, but just having it on stage there's likely going to be a portion of the audience who expects someone to sit down and play it.
With that I'll get into a bit about what I didn't like as much about the play.
Glenn and Tim in act one convincingly set up their characters. Watching it and you believe that Glenn is the freewheeling playboy and Tim is the naive younger brother who's not nearly as worldly or experienced with women.
But the third act, to me, is a bit of a make-or-break moment. In act three we see Tim's character turn into the playboy and Glenn turn into the rule-abiding sibling. It's a difficult role reversal but one that I feel is the take home portion of the play.
My problem with act three is that it seemed as if both Tim and Glenn were less comfortable switching their roles. Maybe that's how it's supposed to be played, but I had a hard time grasping how quickly both characters changed and how subtly unnatural it felt. Mind you it wasn't bad, there were no bad performances. And, as a non-actor I can only imagine how difficult it must be since you're essentially playing two characters in one.

Glenn Weeks and Sarah Hood in "Come Blow Your Horn"

But, I would have liked to seen the natural flow of the brothers' characteristics show in the first to acts carry over into act three.
A part of me wanted to see Buddy's suave side come out more. Maybe if, for instance, he had a scene where he romantically kisses a woman. That might not have been in the script, but something like that might have helped.
Also, at one point Buddy says to his brother, and I may be paraphrasing, but he says something along the lines of "I've changed completely thanks to you, Allan." I kept thinking, well, I wouldn't say that's entirely true.

Because this was the first time I've actually seen the entire show, I may be commenting on something that's written into the script. I stand by the critique either way, however, because if you're going to make characters change their identifying traits, I feel it should be done confidently and convincingly.
It was an admirable attempt, I'll give them that, and they have nothing to be ashamed of with their performances. I just kept waiting for more. I kept hoping for that artistic moment that moves the audience into seeing the world a bit differently, or feeling something that they might not have if they chose to stay home or go do something else.
So, in conclusion, I do recommend that everyone see "Come Blow Your Horn." It's a funny show that meets the bar of expectations that continue to be pushed higher in our fledgling artistic community. The performers all work well together and you'll leave the theater with a smile on your face.
It's a good, funny show -- just not quite a great one.

All photos were taken by Michael Gilboe.