A heavy toll of Puppet Death -

If your sense of humor is a type your friends diplomatically describe as “quirky,” you’re likely the target audience for “Famous Puppet Death Scenes,” a piece of oddball theater that’s down for the holidays from the wilds of western Canada.

Performed by members of a puppeteering collective, the Old Trout Puppet Workshop, the show features a diverse assortment of figures lovingly built with wood and wire, and a comic sensibility of such finely shifting degrees of dryness that you’re often unsure when to laugh. While the experience is ... interesting ... the impression you’re left with is of a diversion somewhat shy of irresistible.

I suspect, though, that among the legions (dozens?) of puppetry sophisticates, the response to the 80-minute show at Woolly Mammoth Theatre will be far more appreciative. And even those who don't consider themselves in that camp can anticipate moments of gentle, sardonic entertainment. The whiff here of Monty Python is a mark in favor of "Famous Puppet Death Scenes," which toils valiantly in the Python field of "And now for something completely different."

Black comedy is the show’s default style; the evening is a muted reveling in bleakness. Most scenes occur in the curtained box of a traditional puppet theater, but some spill onto the Woolly stage. In some, the puppeteers — Nicholas Di Gaetano, Pityu Kenderes and Viktor Lukawski — remain hidden; in others, they’re front and center. A wizened gentleman puppet is our host, offering his own meditations on puppet death and beseeching us to relieve his own loneliness and puppet despair.

The skits, some little more than sight gags, are reputed by the old man to be a compendium of the best dramatic representations of mortality in the annals of puppetdom. Each is introduced by a title and scene citation, followed by a quick foray into dark absurdism or satire. “The Ballad of Edward Grue,” for example, is the woeful story told in rhyme of a man who likes to wander the woods “dressed as a deer.” Antlers, though, prove to be an unfortunate accessory during hunting season.

The highly developed Scandinavian penchant for nihilism is sent up in “The Swede of Donnylargan,” a sketch consisting entirely of rugged peasant puppets walking into a cottage, discovering a body swinging from the rafters and successively shooting themselves in the head. The cleverest component of some of the scenes is the title: “Das Bipsy und Mumu Puppenspiel” is a test of the proposition that a German child-friendly show is an oxymoron. (I especially liked the explanatory subtitle for the excerpt from the 14-hour “The Cruel Sea”: “Theatre of the Insufferable.”) A few of the other, less subtle skits — a rampage by grotesque, bratty boy puppets; an assignation of naked troll-like puppets — are jarring rather than uproarious.

The quality of the puppeteering and puppet design is at all times excellent — the use of perspective in the outer space-bound “King Jeff the Magnificent” being especially noteworthy — and the variety of puppets gives a boost to the show’s quest for endearing surprise. It seems, though, as if the Old Trouts are better at coming up with scenarios than knowing where to take them. Which leaves you with the wish that the handiwork on the page was always as fully realized as what’s on the strings.

Famous Puppet Death Scenes

Created and performed by the Old Trout Puppet Workshop. Originally directed by Tim Sutherland; remount directed by Peter Balkwill, Pityu Kenderes and Judd Palmer. Costumes, Jen Gareau and Sarah Malik; lighting, Cimmeron Meyer; sound, Mike Rinaldi. Through Jan. 4 at Woolly Mammoth Theatre, 641 D St. NW. Call 202-393-3939 or visit www.woollymammoth.net. $20-$78. About 80 minutes.

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