Everyman?

Robert Dubac's insightful Intellect

by Bill Rodriguez

THE MALE INTELLECT: AN OXYMORON? Written and performed by Robert Dubac At Providence Performing Arts Center through August 29.

Pity the poor American male, here at the end of the 20th century. Responsible, by proxy, for milleniums of patriarchal oppression, he has been demoted from gender to sub-species. Well, guys, thanks to one reformed and penitent male, Robert Dubac, we have an opportunity to make amends. We can take a mate or woman friend to The Male Intellect: An Oxymoron? at Providence Performing Arts Center and be properly and publicly chastised while we laugh ourselves silly.

The central voice in the one-man show is Bobby, a fictionalized alter ego for Dubac, which as we meet him is swigging Coronas like it's Happy Hour. He is facing a deadline. In 90 minutes, when the performance is over, he is expecting a call from his fiancé Julie. Two weeks before he offended her and she gave him that time to meditate on the error of his ways and figure out what she, and every woman, wants. But since he's made so many errors in so many ways, he's not done figuring out what he's been doing wrong, never mind what to do right.

Bobby has picked up more than a few rationalizations along the way, such as that penises make men swear. He offers us plenty of glimpses into male motivations. For example, he notes, sex is the only reason that men dance. For us its hard work, see, and you work to get paid. Bobby also has his criticisms of women's ways. On their approach-avoidance conflict about looking attractive he observes: "I never hear you ask, `Does this dress make me look more intelligent?' " And then there's the matter of women not only changing the rules on us all the time but also changing the definitions: "Instead of calling it lying it's `I changed my mind.' "

This intimate little performance doesn't take place in the baroque cavern of PPAC but rather backstage. A few hundred folding chairs fill the stage, the curtain a black backdrop to Dubac standing on a platform. On one side of him are filing cabinets, six-packs and clutter representing the left-brain, the analytical portion of the guy personality. On his other side is his simpler -- unused -- feminine, intuitive component, which as we begin is a blank slate. Literally. An unmarked chalkboard. Eventually, Bobby fills it with the chapter headings of what he's been taught by misguided male mentors about what women want.

Dubac is uncanny in inhabiting some of the five characters we meet, "the chauvinists I grew up listening to," changing not only voice and manner but his entire physical presence. Honesty is the Colonel's watchword. Specifically, he owns up to being an asshole so that when a woman gets exasperated at his reformed-Neanderthal ways he can shrug and remind them they were warned. An old man with a Maine drawl touts a sense of humor as the way to best woo the opposite sex. However, as a demanding perfectionist that his ideal woman has yet to turn up: the fisherman has been on the lookout for a mermaid all his life.

For Fast Eddy in his black leather jacket, the word is passion. He's one of these fast drivin', fast lovin' burnouts-in-training -- a "passion philanthropist" -- who admits that if he were a woman he'd be branded a slut. His leave-'em-first policy comes from what if he were a woman he'd admit was vulnerability -- open your heart to them and they'll chow down to an "emotional buffet." Remove 20 or 30 IQ points, add a Bronx accent and a triceps tattoo and you have Ronnie Cabrezzi, who is into sensitivity and fighting to protect the honor of his mother and three sisters. The least convincing character is Jean-Michel, a French exchange student studying philosophy, who has success wooing women with his sexy accent alone, despite his meaningless jabber about "abstract fatalism."

Most of these characterizations need fuller shaping. Bobby's advisors are stereotypes, but after all, the reason that stereotypes develop is because they are relentlessly common. But Dubac gives enough fresh spin to them that each now and then presents their cliché in a fresh way. A more serious weakness, as I see it, may be a welcome feature for many males who, dragged to PPAC by their wives, end up slapping their knees raw in relief. Namely, it's that Dubac never treads far into the shadows of the male cultural psyche. The words "anger" and "violence!!" are among the listings of hard-wired problems on the flip side of his chalkboard, but Dubac doesn't dare venture into such dark territory. The Male Intellect is entertainment rather than performance art, closer to stand-up comedy than to Eric Bogosian.

But, as Jerry Seinfeld would put it, that's not to say there's anything wrong with that.