The one City Arts Fest event I’ll be sure to hit this weekend: Seateeth, the new production by Stranger theater genius John Osebold.

I thought about emailing John to ask him some background about the production, but thought better of it, partially because City Arts already did, but also because of this: Much of the fun of Osebold’s shows is that you never know what to expect.

The most recent Jose Bold show I saw was his Christmas show, which ended up being a ton of songs (some funny, some sad, all beautiful) only tangentially related to Christmas, set to a bunch of old weird videos from The Prelinger Archives.

Then there was Spidermann, his parody of the dangerous Broadway musical. I missed that, but here’s how The Stranger described the show’s opening:

Projected onto a large screen, over darkness, the words ‘Jose Bold’ with botanical flourishes blossoming in the corner. Then a lens flare wipes the screen clean. Then ‘presents.’ Then in big, shapely, inspiring, timeless red letters, moving slowly up the screen, one at a time, S-P-I-D—eeeeeeeeeeerp!—an error sound over an error screen, a long awful beep over ‘PLEASE STAND BY,’ and then a janky white screen with Spidermann written in what looks like the clumsy square paintbrush on MS Paint.

As for Seateeth, as you’ll see from the trailer above, who knows? Osebold says the inspiration came from reading his first Haruki Murakami novel, and from seeing a giant whale skeleton at Honolulu’s stellar Bishop Museum. He describes Seateeth as “the Jose Bold version of a literary reading,” which is like saying “the Lady GaGa version of a three-piece suit”–it raises more questions than it answers. I don’t want to ruin the show for myself or for you by trying to figure it out. Go and enjoy as the mystery is revealed.

Seateeth plays Thursday October 20 and Saturday October 22 at Theatre Off Jackson, at 10:30 p.m. both nights, as part of City Arts Fest. (Tickets). Osebold will reprise the show Friday, October 28, as part of SAM Remix, at 9:45 p.m. in the Porcelain Room.