Photo by: Michael Furman

If you thought there was only so much a man could do to play with his private parts, you were wrong.

“Puppetry of the Penis: The Ancient Art of Genital Origami,” read the screen at the Paramount Theatre last Friday. Those 10 words were enough to foreshadow the night’s entire unforgettable performance.

With a new spin stand-up comedy, “Puppetry of the Penis” shocked the audience with its bare-naked appearances and dick tricks accompanied by sporadic comedic instances.

“Please check your ticket stubs. Make sure you’re here for ‘Puppetry of the Penis.’ This won’t be the ‘Sound of Music,'” warned Rich Binning, as he and Chris Cannon appeared on stage wearing nothing but long, flowing velvet capes and sneakers. As Binning and Cannon’s comedic set was introduced, Binning spontaneously opened one side of his cape using his hands to talk, teasing the audience with glimpses at his naked body underneath the cape, his chest down to his thighs.

“You should expect some full-frontal nudity tonight,” joked Cannon.

Soon, the inevitable happened. The men disrobed.

Right from the start, the shock value of their performance was made clear. They used so-called ice-breakers to ease the tension among the audience by stretching their penises. They literally did it too, pulling their penises away from their bodies to such lengths that it looked painful.

“Folks, none of the things Chris and I are doing cause us any discomfort,” reassured Binning in response to the “oh’s” and “ah’s” of the audience.

Running through an extensive list of dick tricks, the men twisted, bent, stretched and shaped their penises, testes and scrotums into various objects. From hamburgers, to wind sails and the Loch Ness monsters and a kangaroo pouch, the duo shaped their penises into everything under the sun.

On top of that, they approached more sensitive subjects with professional ease and excitement. Binning and Cannon transformed their penises into vaginas, tucking their scrotums and testes between their legs and twisting them to resemble women’s vaginas for a laugh.

Once the audience had reached a level of comfort with the two men’s nakedness, the duo plunged further into surprise by inviting other men on stage to try a trick. Only one man, however, took advantage of the opportunity.

The penis-twisting duo further interacted with the audience when Cannon also streaked through aisles of people, even sitting on women’s laps.

As a finale, Binning stretched his scrotum into a sail while standing on a skateboard as Cannon used a fan which lacked a metal guard, “for extra danger,” to blow him off stage.

Though the jokes weren’t that funny, Binning’s pre-show warning was spot-on. If you could manage to see the duo’s penis manipulation as talent, you may have been marveled. But watching two grown men stand on stage as they play with their private parts professionally is a far cry from any standard magic trick.

And to think, both of these men have a Bachelor’s degree in performing arts.

“I bet our moms are proud,” exclaimed Cannon with a smile on his face and his penis in his hands. “I love my job.”