Carousel satisfies

public's appetite

By Bill Doll

Scoff as we might at dinner theaters and their post-buffet pabJum qua theatrics, they have found for themselves a critical issue of qur time and have developed its exploration into a fine art.

No matter that the issue Does sex after 50 matter to the Reader's Digest set? may never be argued in the pages of the New York Review of Books. Judging from the success of the genre with this crowd and, specifically, with their response to Carousel Dinner Theater's "Come Blow Your Horn," the issue is pressing, and the answer is yes.

"Horn" has become the dinner theater fare par excellence. This carly Neil Simon comedy about a young man's blossom into a playboy under the tutelage of his brother and assorted damsels, and in the face of his overly possessive parents' histrionics, has all the right ingredients.

It is next to irrelevant for the success of what Carousel is trying to do that the acting is almost universally wooden.

Admittedly, Harry Epstein, a toothy, teddy bear of an actor with an appealing innocence, carries the role of the young man with skill.

And Gertrude Berman has a very funny scene as the scatterbrained super-Jewish mother trying to comprehend an onslaught of phone calls from her eldest son's girl friends.

But the effect is about as slick and polished as an old silent movie run in slow motion.

In dinner theater, the form is everything. First there must be a star, preferably a big name from television.

Thus, the presence of Lyle Waggoner of the Carol Burnett show as the elder son. In less than a week, Carousel had to extend "Horn" another week to May 9.

Waggoner doesn't have to act

R In Review

(and doesn't really). He has simply to be there, five feet from the fans, and personalize things with a curtain chat.

After a star, the form demands sex. Here's where the art comes in. Very delicately. Not subtle, but not explicit. Some mild kissing with wholesomely va-va-voom cuties; suggestions of sexual adventures that would pale the fantasies of Screw magazine; and at least one obligatory homosexual joke but keep it vague. Risque but never risky.

In fact, in flashing a Playboy centerfold in one act, director David Fulford has either gone too far, or Playboy can now be accepted on alongside the Reader's Digest.