Recently Karen Stocker covered a performance of Defending the Caveman in Las Vegas . 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 Kevin Burke who deftly handled the material and had the audience laughing from start to finish.
More details can be found at www.cavemania.com
Here are Karen’s thoughts on the show.
It was funny to go over how people in relationships vary over their form of communication.” Defending the Cave Man” went over several examples.
A wife might ask her husband before a dinner party: “Does this dress look nice , is it the right color or is it too tight.” The husband may say: “Change it to a looser dress”. The wife is upset that the husband did not like the dress. She gets an attitude with him. He this is looking blankly at the wall not understanding why his wife is upset after she asked his opinion.
It showed how one person or wife in a relationship is looking for comforting feelings while the other party or husband is trying to simply answer a question or solve a problem.
One example if the wife greets a friend at a dinner party, she might say to one of the other female visitors, what a nice outfit. And the friend would reply back with “oh that color looks great on you, do you think I picked a complimentary color”. The husbands will stand there stunned as it is something they would not comment on. The one husband might say “Hi big guy”, while his friend would reply back,“ hey…”. it means the same. The man thinks:” “I’m fine, your fine.” Male thought” simple, we acknowledged each other” Nothing else.
The female is thinking, her friend she lost a few pounds. Her thoughts include “ She looks great. I wonder if I look that good?” They chat on into the way of the party talking about how they feel. The men head to the living room, and stare at the TV.
Women generally confirm each other feelings. Men generally just say less and look for the next action taking place.
The speaker tries to bridge the gap of the differences and at the same time show the funniness in both persons or spouse’s thinking and speaking. He relates this back to the great beginnings of the cave man. Men were there to guard and hunt and defend. They never gathered anything, maybe even just glazed over what is in the way to his mission. Women from the beginnings were gathers. She has to take in a lot of items or information to be gathered, sorted, shared and re-organized.
This is a great comedy from beginning to the end. It makes one think through many relationship examples. I would recommend this for everyone
