A Conversation with a Caveman

After seeing Rob Becker in all of his balding, beer-bellied caveman glory, it is extremely difficult to reconcile his stage persona with the sweet, slightly self-conscious voice in which he conducts interviews. He talks much more slowly and deliberately than on stage, but is just as engaging and amusing on the topic of his successful show, Defending the Caveman.

Caveman has enjoyed sold-out runs in nearly every major city from San Francisco to Chicago. The show has done so well in Boston, that it will run at the Wilbur Theater for two additional weeks. When asked if he could have anticipated the immense popularity of the show which he calls "an affectionate comedy about relations between the sexes," Becker immediately replies that he always had confidence in the show.

Becker's inspirations for Caveman are numerous. He describes a party that he attended with some of his female friends. Inevitably the discussion turned to relationships and the male gender. After one woman turned to him and said, "The problem is that all men are assholes," it dawned on him that he was tired of explaining why men were not "assholes, slobs, selfish or insensitive." He began to make a joke out of the situation. Seeing the women laugh, it occurred to him that the best way that he could explain the differences between the sexes was to turn them into comedy. He insists that "when people laugh, they take themselves and their concerns less seriously. This is one of the few ways to break through the gender gap without resorting to accusation."

Yet even before this party, Becker says, he experienced the different ways that men and women communicate with one another. As a boy he would often walk to school with five other girls whose conversations consisted of "gabbing about the opposite sex." These girls would often ask him for advice or his opinion of certain boys. Becker found himself in a position which he argues is not all that unfamiliar to any male with female friends: the representative for all guys. "I got pretty acclimated to being the universal guy, who knew everything about guy things. My friends would ask me typical junior high stuff--like should I call or not." As he grew older, he realized that the confusion between the sexes tends turn into complete misunderstanding.

Becker claims his goal is to transcend these misunderstandings. He offers as his thesis that the differences between men and women originated in the ancient age when men were hunters and women were gatherers. Consequently, men tend to be very singular and goal-oriented while women are more concerned with the abstract and the process.

Many critics argue that Becker is making huge and simplistic generalizations; his response is that comedy is all about generalizations. He says, "Yes, there is generalizing going on, but it is based on my experiences with women. My experiences are the experiences of millions of couples. People always say to me 'how did you know?'" He also qualifies many of his statements about either sex. His audience goes to the theater to laugh and possibly to learn something.

Becker acknowledges the power of his show. He has attracted psychologists, historians and even graduate students in the field of anthropology to his show. Comments from his audience have had a huge role in the development of his show. He calls Defending the Caveman "a dialogue between the audience and himself."