Originally published by: ArtburstMiami.com
Written by: Christine Dolan
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The taking of wedding vows is one of the many topics with a sardonic tone in “Defending the Cavewoman” getting its U.S. premiere at Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre in Coral Gables through Aug. 6. (Photo courtesy of Alberto Romeu)

Since time immemorial – way, way back when cavemen went out hunting and cavewomen did the gathering, or so we’re told – the differences between men and women have inspired a certain kind of theatrical fare.

John Gray’s monster best seller “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus” was adapted by Eric Coble into a solo show. Rob Becker’s one-person “Defending the Caveman” took its laughs and gender observations to Broadway.  The musical “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” by Joe DiPietro and Jimmy Roberts had an Off-Broadway run of more than 5,000 performances and has been done all over the country – Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre in Coral Gables has produced that show four times.

Now the company is aiming to add to the genre with “Defending the Cavewoman,” a solo show starring Carbonell Award winner Lindsey Corey.

Running in the Balcony Theatre at the Miracle through Sunday, Aug. 6, the 2000 comedy by South African playwright Emma Peirson has had a little work done (theatrical Botox?) for its United States premiere, with the hope that this piece might become another much-produced success like the ones referenced above.

At this point, it’s not clear how aspirations for the show might play out (the producers who licensed it to Actors’ Playhouse are Theater Mogul and GFour Productions).

Theater fans who like their entertainment light and relatable go for shows like “Defending the Cavewoman” because men and women often do see things differently.  We are all individuals, of course, and behavior isn’t clearly tied to gender or hormones.

But that hunter-gatherer stuff seems pretty hardwired.

“Defending the Cavewoman” at Actors’ Playhouse features Lindsey Corey in a solo show serving up a contemporary woman’s point of view. (Photo courtesy of Alberto Romeu)

“Defending the Cavewoman,” which was created by Peirson and Vanessa Frost, runs a brisk 85 minutes, with the script incorporating myriad influences.  Nature documentaries, bombastic Oprah Winfrey-style TV, scenes of 10th anniversary domestic discord and the rhythms of standup comedy are all folded into “Cavewoman,” though they don’t always coexist smoothly, despite the imaginative efforts of director David Arisco, the design team and the abundantly impressive, irresistible Corey.

The play’s prologue flips the script on the Adam and Eve story.  God (voiced Oprah-style by Kareema Khouri who, along with Carlos Alayeto and Laura Turnbull, supplies brief interludes of recorded lines) creates Eve first, only to leave her feeling lonely in the lush Garden of Eden.

She asks for a companion and God complies, but as it turns out, this sequence is a setup for the play’s first big woman-to-man shot.  Revealing that here would be a spoiler, and spoilers are bad.

Then “Defending the Cavewoman” gets down to contemporary business.

Corey, who flips into and out of more than a dozen characters, chiefly plays Evelyn, a wife and mother who the day before celebrated her 10th anniversary with her husband Chris. The special day, she notes, was marked by one crisis after another as she frenetically tried to rally her troops – Chris and the kids – to get the house ready for a celebratory family brunch.

Among the crises:  She forgot to order food from the caterers (yes, she says defensively, she can cook – well, maybe that’s not quite true).

By half measure, full measure—actually, by virtually any measure—Measure for Measure as produced by the Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival is a triumphant excavation of one of the bard’s less-produced works that here proves itself to be just as engrossing as his most popular ones. 

Those who are unfamiliar with the show may want to consult at least a summary beforehand to help make up the distance of the 17th century language, or, as I did, to skim through the script beforehand so as to develop a kind of road map for the events that will unfold. However, combined with crisp direction by Trent Stephens and the cast’s energetic performances, I imagine the fairly straightforward story is likely comprehensible to seasoned Shakespeare fans and newcomers alike. 

Towards the end of A CHORUS LINE, FAU Festival Rep’s final production of the summer, a question is posed about whether musical theater will even survive. It made me smile knowing that this musical written by James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante, with music and lyrics by Marvin Hamlisch and Edward Kleban, not only survived from April 1975 to April 1990 (the first Broadway show to exceed 6,000 performances!), but also won a Tony in 1984 for being Broadway’s Longest-Running Musical. In addition to Tonys for Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, Best Original Score and more, a Pulitzer for Drama and a Best Musical Olivier Award to boot. So it’s hardly surprising that this American classic remains a favorite regional production choice to this day – embraced for its impressive dance numbers, memorable songs, and the raw revelations of its “chorus line” cast.

Well, you know what they say, right? It’s all good fun until a hydrangea loses its roots.  

To introduce the show now playing at Gablestage in its most basic sense: Native Gardens is a play that revolves around a dispute between neighbors over the potential placement of a fence meant to divide their gardens. But before I contemplate the absurdity of finding myself close to tears at the conclusion of a play about a garden dispute, I suppose I should explain that the show’s true subject could perhaps be more accurately described as the joy that can be found when the sense of common humanity overcomes the surface obstacles to understanding. 

NYC-based playwright Stephen Brown is having quite the moment in South Florida. Boca’s Theatre Lab has/will run two of his recent plays and LITTLE MONTGOMERY (formerly known as “Country Girls”) is currently enjoying a Florida premiere by New City Players (NCP) at Island City Stage in Wilton Manors. If the name “Little Montgomery” rings a bell, you might have enjoyed listening to NCP’s highly creative serial podcast version back in 2020, at the height of the pandemic.