COWS IN A SNOWSTORM
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Seymour is a kvetch. His enduring complaint is that he never earned his father’s respect and appreciation. The play opens at a retirement ceremony for his father, Martin, the high school football coach. Then the play flashes back to Seymour’s 15th year–the year he had his first date and tried out for the football team. Throw in a bar mitzvah, a heartbreak, and Seymour’s first published article, and you have your basic rite-of-passage play. Judging from the grown-up Seymour, this year was the high point of his life and the zenith of his emotional development. In the end, Seymour admits to never having gotten over the loss of his first love, although at least he discovers that his father really did respect him after all. So like, maybe now he’ll stop complaining, huh?
Cows in a Snowstorm badly fails the “So what?” test. Maybe if Seidman had chosen a central character of her own sex she could have beaten something out of the Neil Simon-Woody Allen dead horse. But that same old whining, oversensitive, athletically disinclined, misunderstood, precocious, witty, and horny but shy adolescent–egad! And we’re supposed to like this kid? Worst of all are Seymour’s compulsive witticisms. Check out this repartee with Seymour’s mom, Ida:
SEYMOUR: Republicans with suntans?
There’s an old joke where a guy holds up a blank sheet of paper and someone asks, “What’s that?” and the guy says “It’s a picture of cows in a snowstorm.” And Seymour, he doesn’t want to be just another cow in a snowstorm. Sort of ironic, isn’t it? An old joke that everyone’s heard before, and an aspiring writer with a fear of obscurity. Seidman could have saved us all a lot of time if she’d just held up a blank sheet of paper.
