‘Jackson’ propels theater outside the box
Frontier populism, political corruption and ethnic cleansing in early America are unlikely subjects for a rock musical. And “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson,” which reinvents our seventh president as a glammedout punk idol, is an equally unexpected choice for Phoenix Theatre, the venerable company that usually sticks to safer fare.
Like “Spring Awakening” a year ago, this month’s production is not part of the regular subscription season, but rather part of an effort to expand the theater’s audience as it prepares to open a new black-box space in September.
“We are testing the water,” artistic director Michael Barnard says. “It’s a contemporary piece like a ‘Spring Awakening’ that draws in a younger audience. ... We’re looking to see where and how far we can push the envelope in our black-box productions.” rik Ibsen obsession. Both were hits for Stray Cat.
“Bloody Bloody” premiered in Southern California in 2008 and made a splash off-Broadway in 2010, but it flopped when it transferred to Broadway later that year.
“It’s kind of a bizarre mashup of ‘Schoolhouse Rock,’ ‘South Park’ and a Fall Out Boy concert,” May says. “The show is great, but a Broadway audience would come in and say, ‘What the hell is this?’ ”
Not to acknowledge any reportorial bias, but the Fall Out Boy comparison might not be the most apt. Although “Andrew Jackson” has been called an “emo rock musical,” its cheeky yet muscular tunesmithing casts a wider net than that dated subgenre, says actor and musician Kyle Sorrell, who serves as onstage bandleader in the show.
“There’s definitely some emo, like Dashboard Confessional, maybe a little Death Cab for Cutie, although I think those guys are maybe more pop than anything, which is why they outlasted the fad of emo rock,” Sorrell says.
“But there’s also some country punk in there. The song we sing at curtain call is one of my favorites. It’s a song that was used in both of Andrew Jackson’s (presidential) campaigns, ‘The Hunters of Kentucky.’ It’s a driving punk version of this old folk song. So there are influences from everywhere.”
Including the curtain call, there are 13 songs in the show, with such titles as “Populism, Yea, Yea” and “The Corrupt Bargain.” In “I’m So That Guy,” a young Jackson sings, “Sometimes you have to make your own story / Sometimes you have to shoot the storyteller in the neck.” And in what might be the funniest tune ever written about genocide, “Ten Little Indians” takes an old folk song and makes its uncomfortable subtext blazingly explicit: “Ten little Indians standing in a line / One got executed, and then there were nine.”
Obviously, this isn’t straight-up history.
“Henry Clay walks around with a ferret pelt that he talks to all the time,” May says. And as for Martin Van Buren, well, you’ll just have to see for yourself.
Perhaps this would be a good time to say that “Bloody Bloody” is intended for mature audiences. But for all the naughty “South Park” humor, there is a real historical drama wrapped into this musical, which draws parallels to today’s politics (with echoes of “take America back”) and asks whether Jackson was an American hero or an American Hitler.
“Somehow using this contemporary language cuts to the chase of what’s really going on,” Sorrell says.
“It’s satirical and hilarious, but (as an actor) you can’t comment on yourself when you’re in a comedy like that. It’s easy just to turn to the audience and be silly about something, but you have to remember you’re representing an actual historical character who had a point of view in this. And even though that point of view has been condensed to maybe one silly line, you have to throw it out there as intently as possible.”