A player from “Mucho Laundry” {thanks, ED SCHRADER}

The Black Cherry Puppet Theater in Southwest Baltimore at 1115 Hollins St., offers residents a portal into the surreal, with a quaint show space. This past Saturday, that space was utilized to its potential with “Mucho Laundry,” a puppet show encompassing all points in the realm of absurdity.

The show was presented by slapstick host, Maestro Sensational (Geoff Graham), a man dressed like a giant sock with a mustache who spoke in what seemed to be an Italian accent. He was joined by a chorus of exuberant socks, more akin in size to the ones you’re probably wearing, called the Sockophants.

We were treated to the cerebral comedic stylings of electric saw player and ventriloquist April Camlin, who focused her performance on the delightfully awkward dynamic between herself and the dummy, which she uses as a vehicle to broadcast an elderly man’s tragic existentialist ramblings.

Snow-Beast (Benjamin Beast), who I recently joined on the round robin tour, tickled our funny bone with his puppet sidekick, Mark, (voiced and maneuvered by Wham City member R.M. O’Brien). Mark, the gritty-voiced working class puppet, is a character from Snow-Beast’s children’s show, “Show-Beast.” The two entertained the audience in a skit about the time Mark grew a beard and was confronted in some alternate dimension with a large-bearded version of Snow-Beast’s head. The skit culminated into something like Jim Henson meets Lewis Carroll.

Ambush Theater performed a hilarious series of dance follies, where a woman simply attempts to dance with a shrub (or more like a person dressed like a shrub) who strives at grace only to continually end up floundering in a farcical manner. The audience wondered whether or not it was part of the gag.

The night was finished off with a revival of the cartoon “Space Ghost,” an action-packed vignette. The skit was complete with an array of delightful props, such as laser-beam operated containment chambers, as well as an enormous dragon-like creature. “Space Ghost” came compliments of a rather large troupe consisting of Kaitlin Murphy, Grace Bedwell, Tim Paggi, Owen Brightman, Sheena Cullage, Kristen Ripley, Ellen Nielsen, Owen Gardner and Dan Breen.

Local musicians Walker & Jay added a touch of finesse to the festivities with delightful folk tunes between each scene, including a dynamite serenade to a mostly toothless female puppet, which came off with just enough sincerity to cause us to ponder the question, “Am I gonna cry over a man singing to a puppet?”

To find out about upcoming Black Cherry Puppet Theater events, check out blackcherry.org.

Ed Schrader is a member of the Wham City arts collective. His column appears Thursdays. Contact him at ed@whamcity.com

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