Review: MEN ARE FROM MARS, WOMEN ARE FROM VENUS LIVE! a Misguided Mission

"Tend her garden," Josh Hyman tells the men in the audience at MEN ARE FROM MARS, WOMEN ARE FROM VENUS LIVE!

"And ladies, throw us some fish."

These metaphors are, in a nutshell, the message put forth in the one-man show playing through Feb. 21 at the Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place.

The show is based on John Gray's hugely popular 1992 self-help book, "Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus" -- and therein lies the problem: The information is dated and, contrary to what the title might make you believe, one-sided.

Being that the show is based on a book written by a man, it follows logically that it is the man's perspective we get throughout. But I will admit to feeling a little cheated that the only woman's voice was Hyman's grating imitation of his wife and not the wife herself. Note to female director Mindy Cooper: Maybe it's time to update the Mars/Venus concept.

Hyman, hyper-enthusiastic and at times genuinely funny, lets loose many truisms throughout the show regarding the ways in which men and women differ when it comes to navigating love and relationships, but it's not enough to make this stale material shine. He talks with ease about his relationship with his wife, Shannon, from their dating days to their honeymoon to parenthood. (He uses his actual name onstage, so it's unclear whether Hyman the actor is talking about his real wife or if he's memorized a script.)

Credit to Hyman that the whole thing flows fairly easily from one anecdote to another -- until he mentions John Gray and introduces a video clip of the author explaining one of his theories. It's an awkward intervention, done twice within the show, perhaps a device to sell more books, which are carefully placed in full view within the frame.

If the audience on opening night was any indication, however, this show is a great date-night option -- and just in time for Valentine's Day. Heterosexual couples of all ages can bask in the familiarity of such ideas as "keeping score" when it comes to thoughtfulness, or a man's penchant for 12-hour football marathons and women as uber-multitaskers who never have anything to wear. And then you should have a lot of sex -- the message that closed the show and oddly got the most laughs.

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