Defending the Caveman

Dates and Venue 14 – 16 February 2008 @ 8pm | Granville Island Stage, Vancouver

Reviewer Ed Farolan


Dave Lapsley, a Hugh Grant look-alike, got the audience laughing from beginning to end with this really funny show that's tagged "the longest running solo show in Broadway history."

The show started with video clips of Lapsley and his wife depicting the never ending conflict of man versus woman, a humorous depiction on how men and women differ in so many aspects. In caveman days, the man was the hunter and the woman, the gatherer.

With funny anecdotes, Lapsley would go into how this still applies today. He gave funny examples of how women love to touch and stay forever in shopping malls, gathering unwanted items, while men would wait until a shirt is completely worn out. He would then go to the mall to shop quickly to buy the a shirt and as fast as lightning, go back home to watch television.

It's a hilariously insightful play about the ways that men and women relate to each other and it continues to be a success in North America with sold out shows in Toronto, Philadelphia, and Chicago. In tonight's show, the house was half full, but it was an appreciative audience that enjoyed a well-scripted hour-and-a-half show with a short intermission.

Comedian Rob Becker wrote the script over a three year period, and I could see from the content of his jokes that there was a lot of studying in the fields of anthropology, prehistory, psychology, sociology and mythology. Writings and drawings on caves were explained with humour, as well as the significance of the spear and stone arrows.

A funny reference to the magic wand which was created by the cave woman was humourously presented by Lapsley to the chagrin of the Friday night audience. With hilarious insights on contemporary feminism and the meaning of masculine sensitivity (men as "assholes") was just funny, and I was laughing all through the show.

The set was apparently inspired by the Flintstones TV series: a sofa with a side table on stage right and a TV so much like the TV set of the Flintstones, caveman style. The lighting effects were simple, Spotlight mostly on Lapsley with some mood lighting in red in two of his fantasy scenes where he conjures the caveman to his living-room.

© 2008 Ed Farolan