No, not Tim Allen. There’s no defense for him.
Last night, my wife and I saw Rob Becker’s Defending the Caveman with Chris Sullivan at the Kavli Theatre in Thousand Oaks. This is a one-man show that explores the relationship between men and women. It opened on Broadway at the Helen Hayes Theater March 1, 1995 and ran until June of 1997, when it embarked on its national tour. It has been performed for over 5-million people.
The show starts with a video showing typical man-and-women things. Fighting over the remote. Man ignoring the women. Men being slobs. The host then recounts an experience where he was with a group of women at a party, and they were stating that all men were assholes… and he was wondering why he didn’t speak up for his gender. He then gets in touch with his inner caveman, and thence starts the riff. The basic premise is that man and women are different creatures that speak different language and behave differently. Men are “hunters”, trained by instinct to be narrowly focused on the “kill”: be that the job, the ball in the game, the television. Men are also negotiators. Women are gatherers: gathering information and cooperating. This shows in how they relax, regain energy, etc. He then shows how these differences lead to the misunderstandings we see between men and women, where we try to talk the wrong language to each other. It is a 115-minute, no-intermission, very very funny show.
During the show, I found myself observing the audience. There was a mix of grey- and no- hair seniors plus middle-aged folks like us and younger folks. The middle-aged and younger folks were finding this guy’s stuff hilarious. The older folks: stone-faced. I also noticed that certain jokes were resonating with the women, who were raucously laughing. The men were silently nodding their heads; you rarely heard deep-laughs. I guess this is how cavemen work.
Our version of the show was performed by Chris Sullivan, who seemed to bring a lot of his life into the show. He’s actually a native of Sacramento, so some of the folks reading this might know him. It was presented by T.O.’s Theatre League.
Next on the calendar: Orange Empire Railway Museum this weekend. SoCal Ren Faire on the 29th (if you’re a SoCal RenFaire person, please speak up, and perhaps we can meet). May 7th will hopefully be the Israeli Independence Day Festival in Woodley Park, and May 13th will be Hair at CSUN. I’ll also note that the NoHo Theatre and Arts Festival (always a great event) is the weekend of May 20/21. Shows I’m planning to get tickets for include Curtains at the Ahamanson, and Don’t Dress for Dinner at the RepEast Playhouse.
[Crossposted to cahwyguy and socal_theatre]
