TAKE MY WIFE . . . PLEASE : Comic Ritch Shydner Hits All Highs, Lows of His Relationships in One-Man Show

Couples who are married or living together are easy to spot at Ritch Shydner’s one-man show, “True Love Confessions,” at the Irvine Improv through Sunday.

They’re the ones who laughingly point at each other in recognition at one of the comedian’s insightful observations about relationships, or whisper, as did one young man to his companion at a recent show: “You taking notes, baby?”

Over the past 14 years, Shydner has virtually made a career of the subject, infusing his act with memorable remarks on the age-old battle of the sexes, which he entertainingly delivers to appeal to both men and women.

“I think being in love means that 90% of the time you look at the other person and think to yourself, ‘I want to spend the rest of my life with you,’ ” he tells audiences. “But 10% of the time you may think, ‘How can I fake my death?’ ”

Until two years ago, the male/female insights made up only a portion--although a large portion--of Shydner’s act.

But with his one-man show, it’s his entire act, with a new twist: “True Love Confessions” is a personal look at Shydner’s seven-year relationship with his wife, Kay, from their dating days to the present.

“It’s a perfect metaphor for all my relationships--all the issues, the problems I had,” Shydner said last week in an interview. “The show is much more personal than my act was. In stand-up . . . every other word is ‘you,’ and everybody relates to it based on how good your ‘ you ‘ is. With this, I strip it away and get down to the essentials and just tell my story.”

As fans of the comic might expect, the show is full of memorable lines. Here’s Shydner on:

* Weddings: “That’s a big day, a romantic thing for a woman. It’s not that way for men. Men weren’t raised that way. . . . My dad never grabbed me and said (in a gruff voice), ‘Come here son, I want to show you something. See this tux right here? That’s the tux I married your mother in. I’m looking forward to the day when you walk down the aisle wearing this tux. It’s a rental; we owe about $11,000, but that’s not important.’ ”

* Communicating: “I just think that most women are far more advanced in communications technology. . . . Women are using fiber optics and we guys got paper cups and a string.”

* Shopping: “Men can’t shop because we’re too competitive. It would be a financial disaster. . . . ‘Did you have a good time shopping today with Larry? ‘ ‘Yeah, I bought a fishing pole; then Larry bought a boat, so I had to buy a marina.”

Shydner, a one-time sociology major from New Jersey whose stand-up credits include “The Tonight Show” and “Late Night With David Letterman,” decided to do a one-man show for several reasons.

He had seen performing artist Spaulding Gray’s one-man show and one-man shows by several other comedians, and he talked to other comics who were thinking of doing the same thing.

“There seemed to be a mood,” he recalled. “I felt there’s another level here that we’re not hitting in stand-up.”

Stand-up, Shydner said, has become kind of stale.

“For me and others doing it for a while, you reach a point where you can’t go anywhere further with it. You can come up with different jokes, but it’s like three-quarter rock ‘n’ roll: You only have a couple of tones you’re going to put up there. Sarcasm is a big one in stand-up. And anger and bemused. That’s about it.”

And with so many stand-up comedy shows on television featuring comics who sound and look alike, he said, “people who come to (clubs) are like, ‘Well, we’ve seen stand-up.’ ”

Shydner wrote the first version of his one-man show two years ago, performing it at the Improv in San Francisco for a week. At the time, it ran two hours and 45 minutes. “I threw everything in: You know, ‘There’s a big slab of marble, let’s start whittling it down.’ ”

He has pared it down to about an hour and 20 minutes, deciding after a run in San Diego in October that it also needed more of a dramatic structure.

With the help of stage and film director Mark Travis, Shydner retooled the show.

“It’s a story now: Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. And there’s still problems even after boy gets girl back, but they’re still together.”

As he sees it, it’s one man’s journey and what he has to do to reach love and commitment.

“It’s my journey and my growth and the problems that came up and how I dealt with them.”

As a performer, Shydner said, doing the one-man show is much harder than doing stand-up.

“I don’t have any of those stand-up tricks to fall back on. I’m saying, ‘Here’s what mine is’; I can’t hide behind that third person. But it’s much more rewarding, too. I love performing it.”

And Shydner, who says he plans to turn “True Love Confessions” into a screenplay, will continue performing it as long as he can.

“I’ll take the show anywhere it can go,” he said. “If it can go to Broadway or off-Broadway, television, movies. . . . I’ll take it anywhere. If you’ve got a Super 8, you might want to come down and shoot it.”

Who: Ritch Shydner.

When: Thursday, Jan. 21, and Sunday, Jan. 24, at 8:30 p.m.; Friday, Jan. 22, at 8:30 and 10:30 p.m.; and Saturday, Jan. 23, at 8 and 10:30 p.m.

Where: The Improv, 4255 Campus Drive, Irvine.

Whereabouts: In the Irvine Marketplace shopping center, across Campus Drive from UC Irvine.

Wherewithal: $7 to $10.

Where to call: (714) 854-5455.