Green Mill

The Paper Machete – Green Mill – February 16, 2019

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It’d been a little over a year since I first went to see The Paper Machete live magazine at the Green Mill on a Saturday afternoon. I learned from that experience that seats are hard to come by (the Wednesday evening show, at least the one time I went, isn’t as crowded), and so arrived an hour and a half before show time, which was only 15 minutes earlier than necessary to avoid unintentionally making lots of new friends among a crowd of people standing around, pressing their bodies into an insufficient amount of space.

Getting there early also affords one the opportunity to watch emcee Christopher Piatt, standing behind the bar, trying to not so subtly rehearse his frenetic Danny Kaye court jester lip-synching routine.

Piatt is a constant, but the rest of the cast of The Paper Machete changes from show to show, so it was an amazing coincidence that Becca Brown, whom I saw perform there a year ago, was again on stage, showing off her strong singing voice.

The comedy also was good, as before, but I was there primarily to see Big Red, that is Meghan Murphy, do her thing, as I have done at Theater Wit, Steppenwolf, and Venus Cabaret.

She didn’t disappoint, capping off her performance by holding the last note of her set long enough that I could have read a couple chapters of a book, had I brought a book.

Piatt, in thanking Murphy and expressing his admiration of her talents, referred to her as the personification of Jessica Rabbit, which seemed to please Murphy.

Fanboy that I am, I couldn’t resist approaching Murphy after the show as she sat at the bar drinking with friends. I introduced myself and fawned over her for a respectable, but not creepy, amount of time before going on my way.

Paper Machete – Green Mill – January 13, 2018

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Somehow, until now, I’ve been unaware of Paper Machete, the live magazine comedy and music review that moved to the Green Mill in December 2012. We arrived there about twenty minutes before the advertised 3:00 start of the show. But the Green Mill is at heart a jazz venue, so they didn’t start until about 3:15, early by jazz standards. Nevertheless, it was SRO to the max when we arrived, and I have no idea how early you have to get there to get a seat.

Though most of the crowd was a lot younger than us, there was a table of four that was a notable exception. They looked like they originally had come to see Billie Holiday in the 30s or 40s and wisely decided not to give up their seats. In the interesting seating configuration that is the Green Mill, their backs were to the main stage, but I was still jealous.

We wound up standing near the side door, constantly dodging waitstaff, but with a decent view of the primary stage and the area behind the bar used as a secondary stage. This put us next to a tall gentlemen who also was older than most of the crowd and who turned out to be the father of one of the performers. Even with that, he had to stand.

The emcee introduced acts, sang, and commented on the news. His opening wild, arm-flagellating, lip-synching routine tired me out just watching him.

In addition to him and that day’s band, we saw two comics, one of whom reported on important new devices displayed at the Consumer Electronics Show, such as smart toilets that create profiles of use by each person in your house.

When the show broke for intermission, we broke for the door, not out of dissatisfaction, as the comedy was spot on (though I’m hesitant to tell you what one comic said about cucumbers), but in response to a cry for help from my lower back ,which was tightening like a screw from standing in one place for an hour and a half. We need a new plan next time.