Recently I covered a performance of Defending the Caveman at the Muckleshoot Casino in Auburn Washington. For those not familiar with the play, it is the longest running one man performance in Broadway history and was the creation of comic Rob Becker who spent three years crafting the play by studying anthropology, prehistory, psychology, sociology and mythology.
After several years on Broadway and touring the world, Becker turned the performance over to a new generation of cavemen who travel the world performing the show to capacity audiences.
The performance is a mastery of comedic narration and tells of the differences between men and women related to our origins. For example, men were hunters and evolved to focus on one object only until they have completed their task. Women however evolved as gathers and need to take in, sample, and experience everything.
This simple premise leads to over an hour of side splitting laughs as everything from the way we communicate, relax, shop, relate, and love is explored and skewed, often while gaining a better knowledge of your loved one and why they do things they way they do.
The performance was done by comedian Cody Lyman who deftly handled the material and had the audience laughing from start to finish. Lyman also graciously signed items for fans after the performance.
This was the 5th time I have seen the show and it is as funny and accurate now as it was when I saw it years ago. My wife and I both agree that the show is required viewing for couples as you will understand each other better and laugh non-stop in doing so.
More details can be found at www.cavemania.com
The Muckleshoot Casino is offering Defending the Caveman as a free show. The casino always has tons of live entertainment for free and prides itself on bringing the best entertainment to their venue. The casino also features a bingo hall and a very enjoyable outdoor amphitheater called White River which hosts the biggest names in music in the summer for some very enjoyable concerts at very good prices. I saw Def Leppard, Styx, and Foreigner at the theater two summers back and enjoyed a very comfortable section on the lawn for about 25.00
Details can be found at https://www.livenation.com/venue/white-river-amphitheatre-tickets
As for the casino itself, I was highly impressed. Many casinos like to bill themselves as “Vegas Style” but few truly can deliver on the unique experience. The Muckleshoot not only offers tons of free parking, but is a very spacious casino with over 2600 machines as well as table games, Bingo, and Keno. The casino has numerous contests and plenty of live music and events as well as dancing at Club Galaxy.
My wife and I were very impressed with the air quality in the casino as even in the designated smoking sections, it was not very bad, and the non-smoking section was very large and not just a few older machines in one room.
I really enjoyed the décor of the casino, and noted that the several restaurants they casino offered had something for every taste. We dined at the Spice Bay Buffet and had an amazing time. The buffet costs $24.95 and offers several live cooking sections each with a national theme. For example, once section had Asian cuisine, another had Italian, while yet another had Northwest cuisine. Although this would have been plenty of food, Spice Bay also offered an American food section with amazing Prime Rib and a seafood section as well as a full soup and salad bar. While clams and crab are not my thing, my wife and mother found it amazing and I enjoyed as much of the other food as I could handle.
To top it off, there was a great dessert bar with cookies, pies, pastry, cake, ice cream and more as well as a no sugar section.
The food was amazing as was our waiter, who took care of all of our needs, and made sure our drinks were filled. We had such a great time, we decided to come back in the morning and have Easter Brunch there and enjoyed omelets made to order and other breakfast foods to go with the other foods I have mentioned earlier.
After dinner it was off to the casino for a night of gaming at the video slots before heading home and could not wait until our next visit which happened to be the next day with our expanded family.
Details can be found at https://www.muckleshootcasino.com/index.html
