Like the Serial podcast? Then you might get a kick out of HERE Arts Center's "Send for the Million Men," which traces the 1920s wrongful (perhaps) prosecution case of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, CSI-style.

Sacco and Vanzetti were immigrants and anarchists in the days when Italians were considered shady. Maybe they committed an armed robbery of a shoe factory and in the process killed two men — or maybe, to non-Italians, Italians all looked the same, and they were just in the wrong place in the wrong time. Theirs was a celebrity case that wound its way through the courts for years, sparking worldwide protests. 

Joseph Silovsky, who wrote the script and is the main performer, is known for the gadgets he builds, and he has a warm, intimate way of storytelling. He doubles back on himself, questions his own judgement and runs around in an unraveling sweater as he sets up robots and projections and puppets. His wife, Catherine McRae, provides the music and Victor Morales is his sidekick, playing occasional characters and helping set up the suitcases that double as screens, forensic devices and a representative of the law. It's part detective story, part steampunk fable and part vaudeville comedy.

The narrative doesn't always hold together — as Silovsky warns in the beginning, he doesn't explain all the details of the case, just those he's interested in. That can make the arc of the story hard to follow, though each individual segment is clear. Yet the show layers convincing evidence with so many haunting images, like a ghostly baseball representing the one Sacco's son would throw over the prison wall, and an animated re-creation of the town where the murders happened, that we are left feeling that a grave injustice was done.

"Send for the Million Men" runs through Dec. 13.