Word's Out And `Caveman' Sails Away

By Sid Smith

`I've never seen anything like this," exclaims producer Michael Leavitt.

He's talking about "Defending the Caveman," comic Rob Becker's show that opened to tepid reviews March 1 at the Briar Street Theatre, 3133 N. Halsted St.

No matter. Buoyed by several thousand psychologists and therapists invited early during its run, "Caveman" is sailing away on apparently feverish word-of-mouth. Now in its 13th week, the show is sold out for the next two weeks and virtually sold out for two more after that. It has been extended through June 19 and is all but certain to be extended again. There's even talk of a fall outing at the downtown Shubert Theatre.

"It touches a nerve with anyone in a relationship," explains publicist, Judy Krug. "You can see them in the audience sit up, take notice and exchange comments while Rob's doing the show."

Interview By Cheryl Lavin

In his one-man show "Defending the Caveman," currently at the Briar Street Theatre, Rob Becker explores the differences between men and women.

Q: What does the title of your show refer to?

A: The show is about an average guy's response to all the anger that is coming at him. It goes back to the beginning of time. The image of the caveman is that of a guy bopping a woman on the head and dragging her back to his cave. But no serious anthropologist believes that. The caveman thought women were magical. But the caveman, to me, became a symbol of man being misunderstood.

Q: What were our primitive roles, and what effect do they have on our behavior today?

A: Men were hunters; women were gatherers. The hunter locks in on one thing, which is why guys have a narrow focus, whether it's watching TV, reading the newspaper or driving. They block everything else out because, as hunters, they had to focus on the rear end of an animal. On the other hand, women, as gatherers, had to take in the whole landscape. Their field of vision is wider.

Q: How do these differences manifest themselves in a shopping mall?

A: The hunter tracks one thing. If I need a shirt, I go and kill a shirt with my credit card and drag it home. The gatherer doesn't know what she's going for because she doesn't know what's going to be ripe or in bloom. She's open to the environment. When I go shopping with my wife, I keep bugging her about what she's looking for, and she says, "Don't bother me; I'll know it when I see it."

Q: Do men and women respond differently to an empty bowl of potato chips?

A: Women cooperate, men negotiate. If six women are sitting around a bowl and it gets low, they all get up and go to the kitchen as a pack. And while they're there, they'll make more dip. With six guys, it's completely different. One guy will say, "It's my house; I'm not going to refill it." Another will say, "Yeah, but I bought 'em." Another will say, "But we used my car." I've seen it come down to their using a tape measure so the guy closest to the kitchen had to go.

Becker's `Caveman' Evolves Into A Sensation

By Sid Smith

You've got to hand it to Rob Becker.

Without being a critics' darling, without a lot of television exposure, he quietly transformed his "Defending the Caveman" from a promising hit at the Briar Street Theatre into a sensation packing them in downtown.

As I rounded the corner a block from the Shubert Theatre on Wednesday, would-be patrons were working the crowd trying to scrounge up a few illicit tickets.

So who is this one-man "Cats," and what do people see in him?

In many respects, he's new because he's old again. Becker revives, and maybe reinvents, the standard nightclub comedy version of the battle between the sexes.

Men love to sit, belch and be silent; women love to talk.

But coming after the sensitivity of the 1970s and the self-conscious cool of the '80s, Becker's stance somehow brings a bit of respectability back to the Neanderthal. He's flush with sound effects, grotesque noises and contorted poses that make him resemble Frankenstein's Igor going into a trance. He also affects a pretty good sendup of an armchair jock swaggering through his lair.

Underneath is disguised intelligence. He often gets away with it not just because of his delivery-like most popular standups, he's pretty funny-but because he crafts an unimpeachable little essay to encase his notions. Women were made to be gatherers, absorb information and pile up stores in the home cave. Men were made to focus on single prey, to stalk, capture and come home to slouch. Or, as Becker sees it, to watch television.

He is special to the audience he reaches because he gives them two uninterrupted hours of extended, mating-game fodder, instead of the five minutes of late-night TV. Couples, his best customers, walk away as if they've been on a journey, as indeed they have. Becker reinforces his humor with a sweet, irresistible, theatrical tug hinting we can all get along better-domestically, that is-if we try.

Women as gatherers pecking away for information. Men with remote controls hunting away for channels. Men in the idyllic silence of fishing. ("How do you explain the beauty?") Women in the multifaceted gathering role while shopping. Shrewdly, both sexes get skewered unmercifully, though Becker goes a long way to restore self-respect for the macho couch potato.

"Two '90s movies have been romantic," Becker says. " `Pretty Woman,' in which the guy was a millionaire, and `Ghost,' in which the guy was dead. I guess that's a fantasy for women-a guy who can protect them but not leave hair behind in the bathtub."