Theatre Exile's "Hunter Gatherers'

Every play implicitly assumes a view of human nature in order to set up the causality underlying every character's action. In his Poetics, Aristotle thought dramatists should construct this assumption in formalistic terms, so that a tragedy consisted of a good individual winding up undeservedly worse off, while comedy showed a less worthy individual achieving a better situation than he or she deserved. George Bernard Shaw explicitly outlined his eugenics-endorsing views of human nature in the preface of Back to Methuselah (although Shaw had already used these ideas to inform plays like Major Barbara and Man and Superman). And Harold Bloom—in Shakespeare and the Invention of the Human—argued that The Bard's entire oeuvre constitutes an attempt to reconsider the question "What is Man?" according to the then-nascent humanist ethics of self-determination.

But Peter Sinn Nachtrieb's Hunter Gatherers is the only play I know that takes its view of human nature from the relatively new science of evolutionary psychology.

No escaping our ancestors

In brief, evolutionary psychology rests on two main hypotheses. First, the mechanisms of human cognition have a genetic basis that, like the structure of the lungs or heart, has evolved over time into its current configuration. More important (at least for the purposes of understanding human nature), this hypothesis holds that all humanity shares general cognitive functions that operate independent of culture— much like, say, the heart and lungs.

Second, evolutionary psychology argues for genetic bases of cognition—a set of evolved psychological mechanisms that developed into their current state in order to deal with a set of problems confronted by our ancestors. And to the extent that homo sapiens hasn't undergone significant genetic alterations since the end of the Pleistocene era (about 12,000 years ago), these mechanisms continue to determine or inform many of our behaviors, even though the "ancestral environment" that shaped them has disappeared.

Almost all of these evolved psychological mechanisms deal with recognizing and adapting to the social hierarchies in which mating strategies take place. Ultimately, no matter how civilized we become, a fixed primal nature lurks within each of us, bent on the goal of helping us replicate and survive.

Why men prefer cocktail waitresses

Consequently, culture doesn't dictate sexual morality. Instead, women instinctively avoid sleeping around because only females who select the fittest mates can ensure a greater chance of survival for their offspring. Today, evolutionary psychologists argue that this evolved mechanism still manifests itself in the greater sexual market value of wealthy or high-profile men. By contrast, men choose mates based exclusively on fertility-based criteria, such as youth, facial symmetry and a biologically based standard of beauty.

Among other things, this theory explains why women would cuckold a decent provider husband to sire the sons of high-status males, while men prefer nubile blondes even when they're cocktail waitresses. (Presumably it also explains why you don't see many 45-year-old strippers, or at least not since Lili St. Cyr retired.)

From this politically incorrect description, it's easy to see why some commentators have called evolutionary psychology the "new sexism," a philosophy that seeks to justify gender-based double standards and even rape.

Woman's two basic urges

In his reunion of four friends pushed to a breaking point where their primal selves re-emerge, Nachtrieb's Hunter Gatherers follows this playbook to the letter. The alpha-female Wendy (Sarah Sanford) arrives "craving flesh" and can't wait to indulge her twin urges: eating and sex. After witnessing the alpha-male Richard (Ross Beschler) wrestle with the omega-male Tom (Matt Pfeifer) in a display of dominance, Wendy ditches her husband and chooses a mate.

Later, Richard reminds Tom about the "order of things" by physically dominating him once again. When Tom complains that they should act civilized (and begs Richard to stop shagging his wife), Tom replies, "This is not a "'silly ritual!'… This "'ritual' is life. You want me to stop "'sleeping with' your wife? Wrestle me and win, Tom."

Ever the loser, Tom even chides the much lower status Pam (Amanda Schoonover) for her misguided sympathy toward him, telling her that she's naÓ¯ve to the "inherent qualities programmed into the human species."

As for the women? Wendy and Pam recall that they each got their first period on the same "sacred day," the "day our reason for living became known." Now in their 30s, Wendy hears the ticking of her biological clock, and the two females fight to bear the children of the higher-status male.

'Selfish genes'

No one could call Nachtrieb's work sexist— it's too damn funny. He diffuses each of evolutionary psychology's most troubling conclusions with searing humor and scathing physical comedy. Wendy remarks on her omega-male husband's inability to father children by quipping that "the closest Tom ever came to an orgasm is an apology." The final battle between the two women sees them fighting over a bag of Richard's "selfish genes."

If evolutionary psychology seems to justify male chauvinism, it also concludes that males are biologically expendable. But to this particular male, that's beside the point. As someone who loves theater that builds its conflict on scientific ideas, Exile's production is the show I've looked forward to all year.