Watching a young Michael Myers reach for a kitchen knife as a gently crooned version of The Carpenters’ “We’ve Only Just Begun” rolls over the audience (along with a great deal of smoke-machine fog), it quickly becomes evident why The Scooty & JoJo Show’s “Carpenters Halloween”—a multimedia smorgasbord of video, puppetry, live music, and cartoonish props that crosses John Carpenter’s “Halloween” with the music of The Carpenters—has become a Chicago cult favorite now in its fourth year of production. As teenager Laurie Strode, director and co-creator Scott Bradley leads a cast of actors (and puppets) in an almost word-for-word re-imagining of the classic horror film, with Myers, still surprisingly spooky even when surrounded by lampoonery, stalking the cardboard-cutout neighborhood of Haddonfield, Illinois while a frantic Dr. Loomis puppet searches for him. The camp factor is appropriately high and the Circuit Nightclub, with its dangling disco balls, offers a more than suitable backdrop for this laugh-out-loud tribute. (Zach Freeman)
Circuit Nightclub, 3641 North Halsted, (800)838-3006. Through October 31. $15-$25.
A Jewel of a Show: A Review of Gem of the Ocean at the Goodman Theatre As with the epic tales of the ancient world, the characters’ stories blend together into one complex, interrelated narrative that gives insight into the past and offers moral and practical guidance for the present.
