La Val’s Subterranean is already the perfect venue for Halloween: You descend a pizza parlor’s steps to its low-ceilinged basement, where the creaks and thumps from upstairs are always part of the show.
Now Theatre Lunatico, which has been in residence in the one-of-a-kind venue since 2017, only ratchets up the creep factor, with a double bill of scary stories.
“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and A Rose for Emily: Tales from Behind the Basement Door” begins with Gendell Hing-Hernández’s adaptation of Washington Irving’s story about, as the 19th century writer put it, “a sequestered glen … under the sway of some witching power.”
It’s paired with Joseph Robinette’s adaptation of William Faulkner’s short story about another kind of isolation. No one but a servant has seen the inside of Miss Emily’s house in a decade. Her town has alternately scorned and pitied her. She had a chance at love, but he vanished. No one finds out why she was such a shut-in till after she dies.