Feb 17th, Woolen Mill Comedy Club, Vermont
Last week’s show was very near and dear to my heart as it took place in my home state of Vermont. I was back visiting my parents and, like the cultured ladies we are, my mom and I decided to see a Friday night show at the Woolen Mill Comedy Club. For those who aren’t familiar with Vermont, think Carhartt dungarees, Bernie Sanders, dirt roads, queer farmers with stick-n-poke tattoos, and deer hanging up in people’s yards from family hunting expeditions. With this in mind, the club was about as VT as it comes. It was located in a literal mill above a brick-oven pizza place in Bridgewater, a one-horse town built along the Ottauquechee River. Inside there were about eight rows of folding chairs, exposed brick walls, and a collection of banjos and ukuleles in one corner. My mom and I slid into the second row with our cans of craft beer and waited. While the Saturday shows are normally popping off, Friday nights are a new addition to the schedule and this happened to be a slow night. When the show started there were only 7 people in the audience, which just so happens to be the population of Vermont. That’s a pretty tricky number to perform for because the setting is just so ✨intimate ✨ and there are no big waves of laughter to coast off. Things can get very static very quickly. Nonetheless! The comedians really rose to the occasion (for the most part) and I want to unpack.
The show was MC’d by Matt Vita and included three comedians: Collen Doyle, another whose name I can’t find anywhere omg I’m the worst!!!!, and headliner, Boris Khaykin. Resident Vermonter Doyle won me over with his opening line. He walked to the front of the stage, cocked his head to one side, and started making loud groaning noises with a slack jaw. That was enough to send my mom and me into hysterics but we somehow laughed even HARDER when he revealed that he was impersonating every 90-year-old curmudgeon from VT. Guys I laughed so hard I was sweating. Sweat. On my body. From laughter. My mom said she’d been waiting for someone to make that joke her whole life. The rest of his set went on to include a gaggle of VT-core gems including the fact that out-of-towners be showing up in their suede shoes not realizing Vermont will absolutely crush them. Doyle, in contrast, was rocking slides in mid-February. That’s how you know he’s for real. That and the fact that he’s apparently related to everyone in the state, including governor Phil Scott, whose ancient relative was pushed around in a wheelchair by Doyle’s great-grandmother after he got his legs blown off in the war. Vermont culture is so specific, so personal, that it’s a real treat when someone truly gets it. You could say I felt seen. I’m only sad that he spilled his pint on the stage while demonstrating how skiers go down moguls (he had the hysteria and unnecessary movement down to a T) because it derailed the flow of Green Mountain bits. But basically I’m obsessed and can’t wait til I’m home again to see more.
Next up was Mystery Comedian, a VT resident of two years originally from LA. His set was a bit of a mixed bag for me. I really enjoyed his “LA dude moves to Vermont” material, like feeling proud of living on 25 acres only to realize his neighbor has a chunky 600, and running downstairs at his wife’s exclamations, expecting an intruder, just to be greeted by a turkey in the yard. Those bits felt very personal and specific and worked well with the crunchy audience he was dealing with. Unfortunately, his other material was a bit more generic, a bit more low-hanging fruit, and I wasn’t a massive fan. For example, some of his jokes revolved around describing the porn you’d find in your dad’s sock drawer, weed strains, and asking about the crowd’s experience with LSD. Maybe this material would have worked better with a different crowd, but idk how much a mother-daughter duo, and two middle-aged couples were really going to take from it. Dude I’m with my mom, I can’t tell you if I’ve tried acid!! Also, not to be the meanest person on planet Earth, but a 30 y/o+ guy acting out VHS porn isn’t the hottest look in the game I’m sorryyyyy.
His other pitfall, imo, was that he seemed preoccupied with the lack of audience members. To be fair, this is pretty understandable; I wouldn’t want to perform to such a small group either. But he seemed kind of insecure/ annoyed about it?? For instance, he dropped that he’d previously performed for audiences of 1000 people and that he just wasn’t gonna get his fix tonight because of the size of the crowd. Okkkk we get that this isn’t your normal crowd, no one’s judging bb. As for getting his fix, I get what he means for sure, but it’s also not our fault more people didn’t show up. I wanna get my fix too! Plus shouldn’t every show be an opportunity to rise to the occasion and slay, regardless of the size? All the same, I get that he was probably just trying to make light of an awkward situation. Who knows, maybe I’m the insecure one because my one little laugh doesn’t pack the punch of 1000 people’s, although people on public transport would disagree…
Moving right along. After Mystery Comedian came headliner, Boris Khaykin, who showed that the way to perform to a tiny crowd is to chill and just do your thing. Khaykin’s set was v conversational, v relaxed. He described things like his delight at getting sushi beside the hospital after his child was born and growing up with a “breast friend”, another boy his mother breast fed who, now 6’2”, is obviously responsible for the comedian’s short king status. He was so at ease I actually forgot I was supposed to feel awkward about being in such a small audience. That ability just shows that no matter what the circumstances may be, the power to change the atmosphere, to guide the room, lies in the hands of the comedian. Everything going on in a room from the size and makeup of the crowd to unexpected stuff like dropping your pint on stage and audience participation should get enveloped into the performance, it shouldn’t take away from it. I just want to be a puppet in a comedian’s master plan to roll with the punches and put on a great show, ya know??!!??! Sigh.
As discussed, there were some moments that night that had me cackling and even sweating (Doyle’s VT grandpa impressions, Khaykin’s breast friend), but nothing compares to MC Matt Vita’s rap about my mom. First of all, he was a great MC in general. Friendly! Silly! Goofy! At the beginning of the show he sang another slightly unhinged song and the weirdness totally cut through the awkwardness of the underpopulated room. I love when a comedian goes full clown mode and does something a little strange (thinking of anal cucumber man from two reviews ago…). Not everyone is going to like it and the risk makes it very daring and cool imo. Anywayyyy, the goofball energy peaked with Vita’s Epic Mom Rap. At the end of the show, Vita exclaimed that he wanted to rap about someone in the audience to close out the night. I volunteered my mom as a subject (RIP her introverted soul), offering that she was very caring, epic, and loved to paint landscapes. Thennnn Vita whipped out whatever machinery you use to drop beats and spit some b a r s. It was so wholesome and impressive and FUNNY!! It felt so appropriate for the atmosphere of the whole night: a little unexpected, crunchy, and intimate. As left of center as VT’s politics tbh. The audience was losing their mind and it was the perfect way to close the show. Plus anyone who hypes up my mom is ok by me.
After Green Mountain Bo Burnham finished his rhymes and the show was over, I left feeling very warm and fuzzy inside. All the inside jokes about VT, the quaint mill setting, the intimacy born of the small crowd, the amount of scruffy beards and hiking boots in the room, the friendliness, the weirdness all reminded me how happy I am to be from Vermont. We’re not exactly the sparkliest, chicest bunch but I think that’s what makes us the best. VT is a place where an improvised rap about an epic mom who loves to paint daffodils can kill and you can turn up to a show in your hiking gear. There are absolutely no frills and what’s left is a lot of heart, silliness, and grumpy grandpas with no teeth💫
