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Do you hate cats but love the TV remote?
Can't stand to shop but need your ...space?
Yes? Then you are a definite candidate to inhabit the world of Robert Dubac's The Male Intellect: an oxymoron?, that hilarious and sharply penetrating piece of work that has settled in at the Providence Performing Arts Center.

You are, by the way, a male, a guy, a dude, a dufus and any number of other definitions - some of which won't make it into this family newspaper - that distinguish the male of the species in very late 20th-centruy America.

And being a man who hasn't got a clue about how to relate to women is at the heart of Male Intellect, which means that women are going to absolutely love this show. It's a winner.
It parodies guys and appeals to women. Who could want anything more?

In his 90-minute, one-man (but with a half-dozen characters) work, Dubac begins as Bobby, a poor guy who hasn't got an inkling why his girlfriend has dumped him, why she's said she'll call him in two weeks, after he's had a chance to think things over.

Think what? Bobby says.

As he sits in his apartment stuffed to cascading with guy things like sports equipment, randomly scattered clothing and booze in odd places, he has NO IDEA what it is he's supposed to think about.

Guys don't think, they do, he thinks.

That's the set up for this work written and performed with great energy by Dubac, a veteran actor and comedian.

From there, Male Intellect sifts through the debris of
modern, urban boy-girl things. Dubac divides the stage into the male half of his brain (cluttered, action-oriented, woozy, boozy) and his female half (clean, subjective, personal).

Wearing black and gray, with a great shock of black hair, he's a performer full of drive, with a comedian's in-your-face attitude and an actor's ability to switch character in an instant.

Male Intellect has a script to complement these skills.

It's a sharp, driven and very funny, even witty at times. It's also fairly raunchy; this is not a show for younger children.
(Dubac's opinion, for instance, of what men would put up with to keep the hair on their head is a giggle and a half but won't make this newspaper.)

What really makes the show is that Dubac has considerable insight into male-female relationships. He knows the pitfalls,the roadblocks and bumps that go on in the times of men and women.

Not all circumstances are covered, obviously; but there's enough here to have many in the audience nodding their heads in recognition.

Eventually, Dubac says men do have to change, but women have to be accepting, too. Not everyone will agree with all of his argument, but Male Intellect is certainly a jumping-off point for discussion.

The Male Intellect: an oxymoron? is that rare thing, a
one-man show that is quirky, laughing-out-loud-funny,
provocative and thoughtful, at all once.

There are two kinds of people who should rush to see it: men and women.

- William K. Gale

PROVIDENCE JOURNAL | July 20, 1999 | Review Index