Oklahoma City Repertory Theatre presents John Venable in one-man comedy.

Informally dressed in his “man-cave” living room, furnished with what looked like a rock easy chair, rock television set and cheesy copies of cave art, Venable had the laid-back charm of a blue-collar comedian, maybe with a little bit of a redneck, who was almost impossible not to like.

A brief video, followed by a story about a cave man appearing to him, as if in a dream, bracketed and set the stage for what amounted to an extended, easygoing, standup comedy routine and jazzlike riff, from prehistory to the present, on the “war between the sexes,” in which he gave “tough love” to both genders.

At the heart of many of the jokes was the contrast between women as “gatherers,” who like shopping, cleaning, collecting objects and talking with their many friends, and men as “hunters,” pointing the TV remote like a spear, and preferring sports, like fishing or baseball, that require few words.

Further embellishing this fundamental contrast was the notion of women's culture being one of cooperation and men's being one of negotiation, a subject that reached a point of humorous absurdity in a story about nobody moving as men discuss who will get up to replenish a bowl of chips.