So these eight Christopher Walken impersonators glide onstage, strutting and yowling and wearing bad wigs. Most are decent Walkens, and the best have mastered the piranha stare and elastic enunciation that snaps the ends of syllables like rubber bands. As the octet — Michael Bayouth, Lily Holleman, Amy Kelly, Kanzo Lee, Patrick O’Sullivan, Tara Prince, Brennan Vetter and Troy Vincent — shapeshift through a dozen familiar Great Moments in Walken (much of which involve violence or the threat of it), it’s clear that Walken, like Elvis, is easy to imitate but hard to top (though Holleman and Bayouth come close). Walken’s gleeful insanity is realized when director O’Sullivan challenges his band of Walkens to new Walken frontiers — an all-Walken Wizard of Oz, a loopy feminine spray commercial, a Q&A called “Talking to Walken,” and a threatening karaoke cover of “These Boots Were Made for…” By the time the Walkens have killed each other off only to rise as zombies and to groove through a gangly version of “Thriller,” my ribs hurt so bad, I felt like I’d been mano a mano with Vincenzo Coccotti.

Thursdays, 8 p.m. Starts: Sept. 4. Continues through Oct. 16, 2008

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