Comedian Mike Dugan brings his one-man show, 'Men Fake Foreplay,' to the Berkshire Music Hall in Pittsfield tonight at 8.

Opening men to change

By Jeffrey Borak
Berkshire Eagle Staff

PITTSFIELD

It's not easy being a man these days.

"We're in a world that's designed to teach men to do the easy thing, not the right thing," says comedian Mike Dugan.

"To me, a man has to learn how to overcome adolescent impulses and appetites in a world whose media culture is all about men continuing to live in their appetites.

"We bury things when we live in our appetites. It's time for men to say 'enough is enough.' "

That's the message Dugan carries in his one-man show, "Men Fake Foreplay," which he'll be performing tonight at 8 at the Berkshire Music Hall on Union Street.

He's performing only a few blocks from the First United Methodist Church where Shawn Colvin will be performing tonight. It's no small irony. Dugan once opened for the Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter.

Dugan has been taking his message on tour throughout the United States, Europe and Britain, where he's performed in London and at the Edinburgh Festival. He's also written a book based on material in the show.

The youngest of five -- he has three sisters and a brother -- Dugan grew up in Ramsey, N.J. He is a product of Catholic schools and Catholic attitudes toward sex.

His show, he said by telephone from a hotel in New Orleans, is an effort to "deconstruct all the influences on men while we're growing up." That means bad sex education and being conditioned to avoid feelings.

"We get nurtured," Dugan said, "but we haven't learned how to nurture."

The 47-year-old Dugan, who lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Shari, and their two daughters, began his career as a stand-up comedian in 1985 at New York's well-known Catch a Rising Star, where he worked alongside Adam Sandler, Chris Rock and Jon Stewart. In 1987, he headed out to San Francisco where, a year later, he won the San Francisco International Stand-Up Comedy Competition. He then moved to Los Angeles and landed an appearance on "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson" which, in turn, led to several more television appearances, including one more on "The Tonight Show" just before Carson's retirement and another with Carson's successor, Jay Leno.

Dugan's appearances on "The Tonight Show" caught the attention of Dennis Miller who, in 1994, hired Dugan to join the team of writers for the first season of Miller's live series on HBO, for which the writers won an Emmy Award.

Success breeds success, it is said. Over the next four years, Dugan wrote for several television shows. But, he said, "I began to feel that this wasn't part of the dream for me. I wanted to write my own voice for my own performance."

Stung by a series of failed relationships and concerned over what he calls the "oversexualization" of American culture, Dugan began assembling what would become "Men Fake Foreplay."

He put the show together in San Francisco, workshopped it there and then took off for London but not without having met the woman who would become his wife.

The operative word for Dugan is "change."

"Men Fake Foreplay," he writes in the book, is about "preconceptions that block us from intimacy.This book is about being open to change."

"I think everyone is overwhelmed," he said during the interview. "You have to put aside everything you think you know. Blame gets us nowhere, it's a loser's game. The men I respect assess and take responsibility."

Being heard in a culture in which humor has turned not only low-brow and easy but also, Dugan says, "venemous, a weapon to cut other people down," is a challenge.

"I've always thought of comedy as being a sharp-edged sword," Dugan said. 
"I make fun of  people's choices ... their character.

"I think people want to laugh. Life is tough with Republicans in office."

Dugan's plans call for more tours of "Men Fake Foreplay." After tonight, his next performance will be tomorrow evening at 8 at The Egg in Albany, N.Y. He'll also do a booksigning tomorrow afternoon from 2 to 4 at Borders Bookstore at 59 Wolf Road in Colonie, N.Y.

Ticket information for tonight's performance is available by telephone at 499-5575. Information for tomorrow night's performance is available through Ticketmaster at (518) 473-1845.