Defending the Caveman

Defending the Caveman came relatively hyped up. After a sold out first run last year, the SRT brought it back for another run due to 'popular demand'. It is easy to see why so many people loved it, dealing as it does with gender stereotypes and the battle of the sexes it was impossible not to resonate. It was definitely popular with the audience, as there were laughs throughout, though the true measure of its success could probably be measured in the number of knowing glances between couples that were exchanged throughout the show.

However, to sum it all up it was not theater. Not to be too pedantic about it, but the 'play' was effectively a one man scripted stand up comic routine masquerading as a play, much to the detriment of both its attempts to be theater and more damagingly, to its attempts at comedy. Apart from a few props (TV set, a couple of wall mounted paintings, chair, pillow) which the best stand up routines now incorporate anyhow, and some largely irrelevant lighting effects, there wasn't anything terribly theatrical about it. Not that it largely mattered if the play (or should I say routine) succeeded on its own terms. I had some serious doubts in that regard, however.

I'm quite a big fan of improvised comedy, particularly the British variety. I admit to not having had the chance to see much improv live, but I have a couple of friends who are diehard fans, and we occasionally get together to watch the latest DVDs of QI (with the indelible Stephen Fry), as well as other one night only performances. Of course the very point of improv is that it is not scripted, and the performer is able to feed off the audience. Of course the best improv performers prepare and reherse quite thoroughly, but there is an element of spontaneity which characterizes the best routines. That of course was very much missing in Defending the Caveman, stolidly scripted as it was.

Daniel Jenkins does a fine enough job, nicely building up an easy rapport with the audience, without which the entire production would have fallen quite flat. He strutted and exaggerated and milked the laughs, and was more than competent especially when role-playing the inevitable disagreements and entanglements that formed the complex web of male-female relations that was at the heart of the show.

Ultimately, though, I just didn't find the jokes all that creative or original, and in fact not even all that funny. There were the usual cliches trotted out about men being hunters and women gatherers and how that accounts for our differences. So women always gather information about each other, while men of course when interacting are satisfied with a couple of grunts following which they watch footie on the telly. Of course that is why men can't multitask either (they're evolved to concentrate on one thing for a long time) while women are quite the opposite. The jokes went on in a similar vein and soon started to wear thin.

The problem is, you soon got the sense that you've heard all of this before, probably when meeting up with you guy or girl pals for a bitch about the opposite sex (ah one thing that men and women have in common!). When the play went on to espouse such nuggets as poking fun of the fact that men absolutely refuse to ask for directions (which was mocked far more succintly and charmingly in Pixar's Cars among other places), I quietly felt the inclination to want to leave the theater, head straight to my local pub and start moaning to my mates. Of course, that could just be down to the fact that I wasn't one of the lucky six people to get a free Tiger beer (in what was probably the only original act in the entire play). More likely, it is due to the urgings of my inner caveman that I felt hard pressed to resist.