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'Intellect' quickly runs out of steamBy JOHN FLEMING, Times Performing Arts Critic© St. Petersburg Times published August 21, 2002 TAMPA -- Robert Dubac comes from a long line of befuddled men. On TV, Jackie Gleason was the working-class '50s version in The Honeymooners. Ray Romano, the Newsday columnist in Everybody Loves Raymond, is the latest incarnation, a softer, gentler type who turns cluelessness into a supposedly charming virtue. In theater, Rob Becker's solo show, Defending the Caveman, became a surprise hit a few years ago with its portrayal of a proudly hapless guy's guy. It was plainly the inspiration for Dubac's overgrown comedy club act, The Male Intellect: An Oxymoron?, which opened Tuesday night at Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. The premise is that Dubac has been dumped by his girlfriend, left to figure out what women want, with self-help books and slugs of beer and tequila. One half of the Ferguson Hall stage is the male chauvinist side of his brain, a cluttered space with dart board, pinup poster, Bucs helmet, file cabinet and piles of dirty laundry; the other half, with just a blackboard, is the feminine side. At first, it is mildly amusing as Dubac works his way through the age-old riff on differences between men and women. Men laugh at the Three Stooges; women don't. Men are logical; women expect "intuition to be accepted as proof in an argument." Men like dogs; women, cats. "Fidelity to a woman is to be faithful to a man. To a man, it's a family of mutual funds," Dubac says. "To a woman, efficiency is a cute studio apartment. To a man, it's drinking a beer while using the urinal." But he soon runs out of fresh material. You've heard it all before. Dubac is an appealing presence in the fast-talking class-clown mold, with a knack for physical foolishness of the cigarettes-in-the-ears variety, but his script is too clever for its own good. Along with the spurned central character, Bobby, he plays a collection of alter egos, including the Southern-fried Colonel, babe magnet Fast Eddie, an old gaffer with a fishing rod, a French student of "abstract fatalism" and a Bronx greaseball. Each offers advice on how to handle a woman. These extended character sketches drag out what might have been a snappy, if predictable, skit into a bloated 90-minute show, performed without intermission. A disembodied feminine voice (Dubac's wife, Lauren Sinclair) chimes in from time to time, but she doesn't have anything terribly interesting to say either. In the battle of the sexes, both sides lose in The Male Intellect: An Oxymoron? REVIEW: The Male Intellect: An Oxymoron? runs through Sunday in Ferguson Hall of Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. Tickets: $15.50-$34.50. (813) 229-7827 or toll-free 1-800-955-1045; or www.tbpac.org.
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