The Neanderthal in Us All

Men don’t like to talk as much as women do, says Rob Becker. But he spends more than 90 minutes talking about it.

That’s not the only thing that Becker says in his “Defending the Caveman” comedy routine at the Pantages Theatre. One of his other observations of human behavior is that men aren’t good at observing human behavior.

Men like to focus on one goal at a time, he claims. Men negotiate with each other, while women cooperate. Men are like this, women are like that, ad nauseam. Becker talks about men and women the way Jackie Mason talks about Jews and Gentiles.

At least Becker has no need for John Gray’s analogy that men are from Mars and women from Venus. Becker believes that gender differences were born on this planet: In “caveman” times, men brought home the bacon and protected the goddess women, who gathered veggies and gave birth.

The set consists of a caveman-style chair and TV set and two caveman paintings. Becker slowly paces around the stage, beefy arms swinging at his sides, using gait and posture and occasional facial expressions to conjure up images of Fred Flintstone. His attire is contemporary, however: blue jeans and T-shirt--regular guy clothes.

Several times during the show, Becker sits in his chair while the lights go fantasy-red, and he describes visions of meeting a real caveman mentor. These visions are usually derailed before they get very specific.

More often, Becker uses anecdotes from his own married life to buttress his generalizations about men and women. Some of these--delivered with a dry, unhurried timing--are amusing enough to warrant a few laughs. Despite his rigid adherence to sex roles, Becker is no misogynist; he makes both genders look foolish, and he clearly believes that women are better at seeing life in all its complexity.

Still, the laughs don’t take off in that irresistible steamroller style that you expect from the best comics. Perhaps it’s because we’ve heard this theme expressed in about 500 previous comedy routines. Perhaps it’s also because the repetition of such categorical statements about men and women eventually causes the mind to rebel. Particular men or women who defy these stereotypes easily come to mind. What about widely reported recent archeological research that suggests that prehistoric women sometimes participated in the hunting, even the fighting? It’s as if Becker, by being so simplistic, is illustrating his own theory that men are lousy at seeing the big, detailed picture.

The amazing thing about “Defending the Caveman” is that it became the longest-running solo show ever on Broadway--and that it’s now being performed in a 2,700-seat hall, more than four times bigger than its Broadway home. Minus a few mumbled lines, Becker is well amplified. Yet as I sat near the front, I wondered what it was like to watch this not especially kinetic soloist from the back of the hall. A brief video at the beginning, seen on a fairly big screen, is easier to see than the rest of the show, and it seems likely that the entire experience would be more satisfying, not to mention less expensive, on video.

* “Defending the Caveman,” Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd. Tuesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 5 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 and 7 p.m. Ends Oct. 24. $27.50-$44.50. (213) 365-3500. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.