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He received his BA in Theatre Arts from Loyola Marymount University. He also studied at The Oxford School of Drama. He would like to thank the city of Chicago for the 20 pounds he has gained since moving there. It makes the winters cozy. He enjoys rib eye steaks, fireworks, and writing about himself in the third person. Two genders, two views on 'Defending the Caveman' The Napa Valley Register Wednesday, August 29, 2007 The female view By JILLIAN JONES, Register Staff Writer Cavemen, cavemen, cavemen … Dirty underwear and wet towels on the floor will not bring you closer to the universe. Take a hint from your cavewomen and turn on the sacred cave washing machine every once in awhile. "Defending the Caveman," a one-man show written by Rob Becker and performed by Chris "Sully" Sullivan at the Lincoln Theater last weekend, explores disparities between men and women as it wades through the muddy waters of the gender gap. For two hours, the show delves into the ways women and men fight, the sanctity of the remote control and even the ceremonial filling of the chip bowl. The languages of the sexes, writes Becker, do not cross over. Suppose you are at a party with six women, he suggests, and the chip bowl is getting low. All six women rise together, most likely hand in hand, and make their way to the kitchen. Once there, they refill the bowl together, birds chirping and tying ribbons in their hair. There are no birds at the men's party. The same situation elicits another response. "Hey man, the chip bowl's getting low." No one moves. "I bought the chips." "It's my bowl." "I ate the chips." "What did you do?" "I … I watched TV." And that man refills the chips. The process, Becker explains, is a negotiation. TV man lost the negotiation; he understands that it is his role to refill the bowl. "No one cares that an hour just went by and no one had chips." The problem, Becker says, comes when the party is mixed company. Someone points out that the chip bowl is getting low. One man says, "I bought the chips." Women stare in disgust. Expletives abound. "No one wants to negotiate?" asks the man. "I must have missed the meeting." A little bit anthropology, a little bit stand-up, "Defending the Caveman" draws exasperated sighs from women in the audience, looks of recognition between couples, as well as the occasional elbow jab: You do that all the time! It isn't so much that the humor is particularly original. The accepted stereotype is that women like to shop and men will gladly wear the dirty T-shirt straight from the hamper. The originality, rather, is in Becker's explanation of how this gender gap arose. The behavioral differences between men and women, the show claims, is the result of evolutionary processes stemming from the days of the caveman. Today, men and women are simply the modern-day versions of hunters and gatherers. Women, as they shop, gather clothes with no end goal in mind. They take their time, taking in all of the sights and sounds around them. Reminiscent of the days when they had to store for the winter months ahead, women "fill their basket" and never stop at just one shirt. They are gatherers. Men, on the other hand, just need a T-shirt. They hunt one down, and the first one they find that meets their needs, they kill. Then, "me go watch TV." Becker may not garner scholarly acclaim among anthropologists, but he does win more than a few laughs. Sullivan, who took over the show from Becker, boasts tremendous energy, sincerity (his looks of utter confusion are priceless) and a dominant stage presence. Sullivan's timing is impeccable, and he seems to be truly enjoying himself. The audience does, too. Before the curtain went up, one couple in the audience had their own diametric debate. A woman's voice: "The show is about the difference between how men and women think." A man's voice: "The show is about sex." The male view By MICHAEL WATERSON, For the Register Cavemen aren't very good around the cave. When not seeking a mystic vision by sitting on the floor in a circle of sacred objects — like used bath towels and dirty underwear — they are busy hogging the remote control, killing TV channels as if they were mastodons and ignoring the woman of the cave … which means sleeping under the stars later. That's only one of the lessons of "Defending the Caveman," the one-man show written by Rob Becker and performed by Chris "Sully" Sullivan at the Lincoln Theater over the weekend. In truth, cavemen — nowadays just called "men" — need defending. In the modern world our hunter skills, honed by eons of evolution, are pretty much obsolete. After all, you can't feed and clothe your family with the meat and skin of a TV channel. Women, on the other hand, are gatherers. Whereas men need silence and focus to hunt, women need to constantly glean and exchange information. Women achieve goals by cooperation: They all go to the kitchen together to refill the bowl of chips. Men achieve their goals by negotiation: Whoever didn't buy the chips or the beer or provide the TV has to take the bowl into the kitchen and refill it. Men and women, Sullivan tells us, were biologically engineered with skill-sets designed to compliment each other. The problem for men is that in our systematized, computerized, information-rich world cooperation — think "networking" — is highly valued. In a world based on cooperation, negotiation puts you outside the group and screams, "I am an egotistical, self-centered (censored)." When a man tries to negotiate with a woman he winds up sleeping outside the cave. Another lesson from the show: Women are tuned-in to the cycles of the moon and the rhythms of life. Men are tuned in to whatever is on ESPN. Saturday night's audience was definitely tuned in to Sullivan and what he had to say. Rarely has the gender gap been mapped out on the cave wall in such hilarious detail. Becker's script is loaded with comic epiphanies for both sexes. A look around the very healthy house revealed plenty of nods, prods and elbow pokes between mates. "Marriage counselors send their clients to see the show," Sullivan said in a post-show interview backstage. Like the "Venus and Mars" books of a number of years ago, "Caveman" looks at gender differences as the source of misunderstanding and conflict, although in a much more entertaining format. In "Caveman" gender differences are dissected with the scalpel of humor, not bludgeoned with a club of didacticism. Judging by the number of couples who walked out holding hands, it would seem to be a good show to present around Valentine's Day. Sullivan, who has been performing the show for about five years since taking over from author Becker, described Saturday's performance as perhaps "the best show I've done." Speaking as an audience member it would be hard to imagine a better one. Sullivan's timing, delivery, range and technique appeared flawless throughout the two-hour monologue. A big man — something over 6 feet 6 inches by my estimate — he's got a physical presence that perfectly fits the role. Any man who has spent his share of nights sleeping outside the cave can vouch for "Caveman's" insight. Are cavemen headed for extinction? It's possible. But maybe women will keep us around just for laughs. Defending the Caveman with Chris Sullivan Thursday, May 20, 2004 by John Mark Reynolds This brilliant show restores my faith in La Mirada theater. Annie, their last, was a dreary paint by numbers show with no energy and overly precious children. By contrast, Defending the Caveman fills the stage and the auditorium. . . and it has one person in it. Chris Sullivan is witty, knows the secret of working a difficult La Mirada audience, and is working with great material. La Mirada is a great theater town, but like many communities can tend to like "standards." This show is not part of the musical theater canon. It also refreshingly is geared to married people in their thirties and forties. As to the show, it actually has something important to say. Pop culture allows television to mock men with impunity. Fathers are portrayed as uniformly stupid and stereotypically masculine behavior is ridiculed. Women's ways are exalted by much of society while men's foibles make them barbarians in the household. This point has been made before, but never by a manic man surrounded by underwear. The play asks men and women to enter into each other world and accept the differences. That sounds sappy and like a p.c. greeting card, but is actually making a point subversive to the leftist culture. Conservatives are happy to accept difference. It is one fringe feminist group that decided that men and women were interchangeable. To give one example that has already entered the family lexicon: Sullivan pictures women as "information gatherers." They meet and pass information back and forth. "Hello, honey. You look great. Did you hear that A is getting an operation Monday?" "You look great too. I can't believe that A is in such a bad way. It reminds me of B. Did you know she is sick, but is still getting a new house?" Women bond by sharing information. Start watching and you will see it is true. Men are "hunters" who tend to talk about a common task. They don't gather information and don't enjoy distributing it. This can make for conversational hell. This is not Dante and it is not new, but is done in a witty way. The show is best for married couples. It has some naughty language, but led to a great deal of good talk in our family. Laughing at the caveman and cavewoman in us all By Janet Rems 11/09/2004 The differences between the sexes is food for thought that men and women—probably more women—have been chewing on and spitting out. Well, since there have been men and women, at least since “Caveman” times. But that recognition is its strength. It is what makes this show so comfortably funny. And it is laugh-out-loud funny. The observations in this “solo comedy,” which played 702 performances on Broadway and earned for its creator a coveted British Olivier Award for comedic playwriting, confirm what most of us have already accepted as truth. According to Rob Becker’s version of anthropology 101, men, like their caveman ancestors, remain hunters. Women, on the other hand, like their primitive forebears, remain gatherers. Even in these so-called civilized times, the attributes of the hunter and gatherer are so embedded in our psyches that they still motivate many of our actions. For instance, when a man goes shopping, he heads straight for his “prey.” If it is a new T-shirt, he doesn’t look around; he doesn’t comparison shop. He buys the first T-shirt that fits his needs and goes home triumphant. A woman, as any skilled gatherer would, thoroughly checks out her surroundings, checks out ALL the merchandise before making her choices—often with other women or reluctant husbands. Still propelled by ancient ways, she will frequently gather other versions of items (often designer shoes) that she already owns—after all, you never know if you will need more for another day. For the hunter, all life is negotiation; for the gatherer, all life is cooperation. For the cavemen and cavewomen in the audience, every laugh was likely accompanied by a satisfying “that’s so true!” Star Chris Sullivan, at least in his “caveman” persona, is the quintessential nice guy—earnestly explaining all the reasons why men, even in these feminist times, are still men and women are still women and why men, unlike the perceptions of many women, are not “assholes.” They are just wired that way. Big and slightly burly, but totally unthreatening and looking absolutely at home in a rumpled T-shirt, worn jeans and caveman beard, Sullivan is the kind of guy men would enjoy having a beer with and women would definitely enjoy taking home for dinner. Be forewarned, however, that if you are a person put off by “PDAs” (public displays of affection), there was a lot of affectionate nudging going on during the performance and couples were seen strolling out into the night holding hands, as press material suggested. Apparently, in this case, familiarity breeds the opposite of contempt. Also be forewarned, the insights gained during the evening will linger on. Looking for our car in the garage after the show, I, the gatherer, pulled out all the minute details I remembered about where it was parked. My husband, on the other hand, was ready, in good hunter fashion, to plunge forward on instinct. The couple who shared the elevator with us joined us in a laugh of immediate recognition. Defending the Caveman
By CATHERINE STADEM (Anchorage) Sullivan, a tall, graceful, bearded young man with total command of the huge Atwood stage, seemed to completely enjoy opening night. It's challenging for an actor to convey a sense of intimacy with several hundred people in a large venue, but Sullivan managed easily, often shading his eyes from the intense stage lights to grin at the crowd. And the crowd seemed to love him. To make sure Sullivan's points were well-taken and appreciated, couples shot elbows at each other, often shouted at the stage in agreement and interrupted his routine countless times with applause. What was billed as a 90-minute show with no intermission ended up as two nonstop hours. Even when it was over, Sullivan seemed reluctant to leave the stage. ...'Caveman' is very funny, with the smart humor easing the way to insights about our diverse behaviors. Laughter truly is the best therapy, especially when we're forced to laugh at ourselves. Catherine Stadem is a fellow of the National Critics Institute and a member of the American Theatre Critics Association. 'Defending the Caveman' takes us back to the basics
Wednesday, October 22, 2003 BY ELIZABETH CLARK SPECIAL TO THE GAZETTE If you run into "Defending the Caveman" star Chris Sullivan on the street, chances are his greeting will be but a grunt. After all, if men use about 2,000 words a day to women's 7,000, he's getting his year's worth at the State Theatre this week, where the one-man stand-up comedy show will be staged through Saturday. The show opened Tuesday and brought its half-hunter, half-gatherer audience to its feet in standing ovation. The premise of "Caveman," after all, reckons we haven't evolved as far as we think from our hunter-gatherer roots. Comedian Rob Becker wrote the show and originated the role while studying anthropology, sociology and prehistory and he breaks relationship difficulties down to men and women coming from two different cultures altogether. Six months ago, Becker passed the loin-cloth to Sullivan, who's coming into his own in the challenging task of what amounts to an hour-and-a-half comedic monologue. For all the P.C. posturing you hear that we're all equal, Becker and Sullivan make solid points that we're drastically different, and they do so with irrefutable commonalities. Differing gender tendencies, which become gross generalizations for the sake of comedy, can make the whole man-woman thing a real mess. The idea of a "man of few words" is a natural extension of the hunting environment, Sullivan contends. You set a goal -- aka kill buffalo -- then proceed in a one-track manner to achieve that goal, with silence being essential to the success because noise could scare away game. Gathering, however, involves a multi-task orientation and talking is useful to scare away any predators. The woman would process a lot of information both visually and through conversation with her fellow gatherers as she filled her basket. You know what that sounds like? "Shopping." Thunderous applause. This gulf makes hunter and gatherer terrible baseball teammates, for example. Baseball's a great man sport, he said, because you're out there together focused on a goal and not particularly near to one another. Nodding and spitting convey all the necessary information. But if you let the girls on the field (and it's always outfield, isn't it?), "They collect in the middle and start talking." Point and match. But the final score after he picks at female foibles and shoots spears at men's weaknesses is rather love-love. And perhaps it will make couples, which appeared to make up the bulk of the audience, be a bit more loving and less unrealistically demanding of one another. Ultimately, the show almost works better as therapy than as comedy. If one woman walks away from the show more forgiving of her beloved forgetting to tell her she looks pretty today (or one guy gets the gumption to tell her), Sullivan's made one great leap for Caveman and Cavewoman kind alike. REVIEW 2003 Kalamazoo. Used with permission "Defending the Caveman"
Symphony Hall, SPRINGFIELD, MASS. October 30, 2003 SPRINGFIELD - Was it stand-up comedy? Was it a play? Was it a one-man monologue? All three. This was Rob Becker's "Defending the Caveman" which opened Symphony Hall's 2003/04 Broadway season. Actor Chris Sullivan took his audience on a twisted and comic journey to the planets where men and women came from. Mars? Venus? Surprisingly, we hail from the same planet -- we evolved from the Earth's caveman. Sullivan made it clear that only Mr. and Mrs. Caveman understood each other. From that point on, communication between the sexes has been downhill. This contemporary script has the burden of standing the test of time, but for now it is on the mark in its humorous language. Such topics handled adroitly from both points of view were: logic, shopping, sex, Woody Allen, multitasking, fighting fair, imagination, bathroom guest towels, and fishing. The latter was a funny bit on the way men communicate with each other. One of the most enlightening revelations answered the question, "Why don't men ask for directions?" Without giving away the answer, it's safe to say, "Blame it on the caveman." Except for a short silent film at the show's start (purposely amateur), Sullivan commanded the stage for two hours. His facial expressions, body movement, and occasional bass voice made him perfect for the role. Without a single pause, he kept the pace flowing. Shera Cohen 'Caveman' delivers laugh after laugh
Posted Sep. 17, 2003 By Warren Gerds Part play, part lecture, part advice, part marriage counseling and mostly funny, "Defending the Caveman" started an eight-performance run Tuesday night at the Weidner Center. This is an hour and 40 minutes of clever observations on why men are men and women are women. Chris Sullivan makes it seem as though the words are his and the show is his. That's good acting. The play was written by Rob Becker, who started out as a stand-up comedian and then came up with this remarkable piece. It's comedy built from anthropological study, history, human behavior, social interaction and common sense. If you're twentysomething or thirtysomething, there's plenty here. Or simply laughs. The script goes through a complex theory point-by-point (and laugh-by-laugh). Boiled down, men and women have entirely different customs, ways of thinking and skills. Man focuses on a goal - something acquired from hunting. Women gather information and details - acquired from gathering food in the wild. Or so Becker's theory goes. The trick with "Defending the Caveman" was making something funny out of these scientific roots. The author presents many man-women stories. Sullivan delivers all sorts of mannerisms (though continually hitching up the pants is not in the script), body English, voice changes, expressions and cool moves. His presence is perfect for this play. He's a manly man, a guy's guy - and a women's guy - with a big physique and burly voice. He gives advice on sex, too. It's kind of like a defensive end explaining the birds and the bees. The language is in-your-face at times, but it's the going thing in the target crowd. 'Defending' my gender:
Two perspectives on 'Caveman' The Daily Texan | 3/5/2004 Chris Sullivan stars in Rob Becker´s "Defending the Caveman," the wildly popular Broadway play. Women and assholes. Those are the two genders, right ladies? OK, maybe that's a little harsh, but it does seem to be a belief many women hold and men quietly accept. It's a belief that Chris Sullivan hilariously defends in Rob Becker's "Defending the Caveman," the longest-running solo play in Broadway's history that recently hit the Paramount Theatre. For 90 minutes, Sullivan gets you laughing hysterically (even to the point of tears) as he explains that men aren't all bastards, they just operate on completely different levels than women. For example, when we call up a girlfriend to talk, we really want to talk. Guys don't do this, Sullivan says. When a guy calls another guy up to "talk," he's asking for money. So mature. According to Sullivan, men and women are like two different cultures with different customs. Girls finish other girls' sentences when they get going in a conversation. This baffles guys sitting at their table. Guys "hunt" for a shirt they need and never browse. We sadly learned this the first time we tried to take our guy shopping. Every time Sullivan points out these obvious conflicts that happen every day between genders, the audience roars with laughter as they gain a little more insight on why men and women misunderstand each other so much. You have until Sunday to see this show, and I urge you to bring your husband, fiance or boyfriend. You will leave feeling a little closer to them. Hit the show with your single self and you might leave thinking back to that ex you just broke up with, and how maybe you two weren't really wrong for each other after all. Maybe you just misunderstood each other. Or maybe he's still just a big asshole. Either way, you will get a laugh out of it. This show mostly helps you fall in love with men all over again. Sullivan reiterates what you already knew but probably forgot during your last fight with a man. As mad as they make us, men really aren't intending to purposefully piss us off; according to Sullivan, they just simply aren't big talkers, shoppers, cleaners, sharers, socializers or gossipers. Rob Becker's Defending The Caveman
Reviewed January 2 A Potomac Stages Pick for a constant stream of laughs Rob Becker's well constructed, frequently insightful and consistently funny solo show began in 1991 as a little off-Broadway evening, transferred to Broadway in 1995 where it played two different theaters for over two years, and then went on tour across the nation. It kept selling so many tickets that Becker, its writer and star, started hiring other performers to do the show on the road. Today, Becker is touring the west coast with the show, Isaac Lamb is touring the east coast and what began as a fairly short stop here in the Potomac Region has extended into an open ended run first with Chris Sullivan and then with Kevin Burke on stage at the Spectrum. Storyline - A man who has studied the sociology, psychology and history of the relationship between the sexes from the caveman to the computer geek splits the species that has evolved from hunter/gatherer into two genders - the narrowly focused hunters who became modern man with a passion for power tools, and the all encompassing gatherers who became the modern, socially conscious and nurturing woman. He explains it all to you. 'Caveman' drums straight stereotypes into a hoot
February 11, 2005 BY KEVIN NANCE The caveman has come hunting again, and this time he's a bit younger, slimmer and a lot more eager to please. Chris Sullivan is the fresh and appealing star of "Rob Becker’s Defending the Caveman," a new touring production of comedian Rob Becker's long-running solo show about the differences between men and women, now in an open run at the Lakeshore Theater. (“Caveman” is) a jolly, earnest, sweet-natured show that its intended audience -- heterosexual couples -- is likely to find irresistibly funny and, at a cartoonishly reductive level, demonstrably true, even if its slightly nutty take on gender roles has more to do with the Flintstones than with anthropology. The idea, which the show seems to be deadly serious about, is that the disparate styles of men and the women they love are modern-day outgrowths of gender roles in prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies. Men have one-track minds, the theory goes, because their ridge-browed Neanderthal forebears had to concentrate on the hunt to the exclusion of all else. So when a man ignores his wife while he's watching TV, he's not being a jerk; he's just doing what comes naturally. So lay off, will you? This is important, the show suggests, because of the flood of male-bashing that has supposedly rained down on the heads of average Joes everywhere since the advent of feminism (which goes unnamed but is clearly the cultural culprit whose ill effects it labors so heroically to overcome). Well, maybe, although some will find it difficult to take seriously the idea that men are so oppressed by name-calling women that they need anyone, least of all Becker, to defend them. To its credit, though, "Defending the Caveman" doesn't bash back at women; instead it throws itself on their mercy and butters them up every chance it gets. The show registers, of course, primarily with husbands and wives, especially those with a taste for the he-left-the-toilet-seat-up humor that's been a staple of stand-up comedy since the Reagan years. If you are homosexual or "metrosexual" -- one of the millions of men who actually enjoy conversation and shopping -- or a woman who isn't obsessed with clothes, then "Defending the Caveman" has essentially nothing to say to you. In Becker's world, in fact, you do not exist. If you are in the target audience, however, "Defending the Caveman" is a nonstop hoot in which you'll likely find more than a few kernels of truth amid all the stereotypes. Again and again on Wednesday night, you could hear couples seeing themselves in Sullivan's stories, and their laughter was always that of recognition. It was a hearty and beautiful sound. And if -- as Becker seems to intend -- the show ends up functioning as a theatrical substitute for couples counseling, what could be wrong with that? THEATER REVIEW: 'Caveman' forages for facts between sexes
Santa Barbara News-Press 9/1/05 By TOM JACOBS_NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER Women are from Mars, men are from the Catskills. Or so one might infer from "Defending the Caveman," the hilarious and insightful one-man show currently running at Ventura's Rubicon Theatre. Sort of a psychological stand-up routine, the 1990s Broadway hit describes the different ways men and women perceive the world and interact with their peers. The superb Chris Sullivan amuses us for nearly two intermissionless hours with careful observations of gender-based behavior. Given the many ways the material could have turned pedantic, preachy or offensive, it's fair to say playwright Rob Becker voluntarily stepped into a minefield. But he defuses each mine he encounters with a combination of humor and heartfelt humanity. Mr. Becker, who created the show and performed it on Broadway, began with a brilliant idea: Take the men-are-from-Mars/women-are-from-Venus material that was filtering down from psychologists' offices into the general culture and turn it into a comic monologue. According to the program notes, he took three years researching and shaping the material, and his hard work shows. His monologue is grounded in solid research, and it has been honed into a sharp, seamless piece of writing, complete with recurring phrases that pop up amusingly in different contexts. Mr. Becker's basic point is that men and women inhabit two different cultures, with different rules, expectations and methods of expression. His goal is to help women see that men aren't trying to annoy them (and vice-versa); our minds simply work differently. For instance, here's Mr. Becker's take on emotional communication. "Women will say, 'You're one of my best friends.' Men will say, 'Are you still driving that piece of (expletive)'? It means the same thing." Additional insights: When a task needs to be done, women rely on cooperation, while men turn to negotiation. Men, who were the hunters in prehistoric societies, tend to focus on one thing at a time, while women, who were the gatherers, more easily absorb multiple sources of information. One can accuse Mr. Becker of oversimplification and overgeneralization; after all, gender conditioning is just one factor influencing our thoughts and actions. But the rippling laughs of recognition suggest that most everyone can relate to at least some of his anecdotes. Mr. Sullivan has been touring with this show for years (he is one of several cavemen criss-crossing the country), but his performance feels remarkably fresh. He gives the impression he is speaking extemporaneously -- letting us in on some secrets he just discovered. Sullivan’s comic timing is excellent, and his face vividly registers such embarrassing emotions as cluelessness and exasperation. "Defending the Caveman" is running in repertory with "Shirley Valentine" as part of the Rubicon's battle-of-the-sexes summer. In fact, no counterprogramming was necessary. Mr. Becker's play, in Mr. Sullivan's capable hands, speaks eloquently to both genders, arguing that men and women both deserve respect and understanding. Now if he could just get his dirty underwear off the stage floor.
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