At Martyr’s, as with the last time I was there (see blog of March 19), my friend Terry and I were two of only a handful of men in the audience and again there was only one male story teller (this time Terry). Other than Terry, who is always funny, the highlights were the woman who told about giving herself a Brazilian wax and the woman who told how she cut a cast off her mother’s leg in the bathroom when she was a child. It wasn’t a show for the faint of heart.

Two days later, at Mrs. Murphy’s, it was my turn to tell a story. Nine friends came in support, one just back from a month in New Zealand. She won the hypothetical prize for farthest traveled to see the show.

I was pleased that the audience laughed at my story in all the right places. One never knows when rehearsing to an empty living room at home. I also wasn’t displeased by the compliments I received afterward from imperfect strangers (nobody’s perfect).

As for the other story tellers at Mrs. Murphy’s, one has green hair and told a story about her vaudevillian mother Topsy, which included mention of intercourse on top of a bar immediately following a bar room brawl. You have to love that.

I also took some small measure of satisfaction from the fact that one of the other story tellers adopted two minor suggestions for additional humor I gave him for his story at the prep session (perhaps my life’s dream to be a script joke doctor can still come true).

And, because I couldn’t help myself, I also had suggested at the prep session that someone else not look up at the ceiling so much while telling her story, which advice she took by instead closing her eyes for much of the time she was talking. I think she missed my point. And perhaps I should leave directing to others.