What a brilliant
way to get young people (and the rest of us) interested in history. By the time
you leave SpeakEasy Stage’s badass BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON (playing
through Nov. 17th), you’ll be well versed on early 19th
century America.
My generation had only a Top 40 hit by Johnnie Horton to introduce us to The
Battle of New Orleans!
After seeing
SpeakEasy’s outrageous rock musical, I’m reading everything I can find about
our 7th President. Mind you, you’ll have to get used to the
“language” (as they say on television warnings) but creators Alex Timbers and
Michael Friedman have something to say about politics, namely that little has
changed over the years. If you’re still smarting from the Bush-Gore election
outcome, you’ll be surprised (and appalled) that it’s happened before.
Jackson is considered to be the first
democratically elected “man of the people.” If you’ve heard of the infamous “Trail
of Tears,” then you know about the forced march which killed 4000 Native
Americans, pushing them west and away from white “settlers.” That, too, was Jackson. And, this being
in the south before The Civil War, he owned slaves.
You can see from
the many parallels to our present day (like the “fear along the borders”
concern and the many patronage positions Jackson
filled with his friends) why Timbers and Friedman were drawn to this historical
period, with its unwanted wars and shady politics.
The music is
reminiscent of AMERICAN IDIOT but not as freewheeling because of its subject
matter. It soars in numbers like the sardonic “Ten Little Indians,” deliciously
rocked by Amy Jo Jackson… and in the Brechtian anthem, “The Saddest Song” where
Gus Curry as Jackson
laments the wrong he’s done. You can see the madness and the sadness “behind
blue eyes” in Curry’s world weary portrayal at the end of Jackson’s life. And he lets you see the
wildness in the early Jackson.
Director Paul Melone’s entire cast is first rate.
Alessandra
Vaganek gives a stong, touching performance as Jackson’s soul mate (who married him before
her divorce was final). Music director Nicholas James Connell performs in front
of the orchestra as well as in it, leading the powerful ensemble, with
hilarious narration by Mary Callanan and cameos by Michael Levesque as Red
Eagle, Diego Klock-Perez as Black Fox and Joshua Pemberton as Martin Van Buren.
Eric Levenson’s
funky antique farm implements and frontier detritus adorn a nifty fence through
which arrows thwack (one of Eric Norris’ clever, cheeky sounds for the
production) into the backs of the land-grabbing, genocidal “pioneers.” The BIG
message which turns the raucous proceedings serious comes only at the end (in
the form of masks). I wish it had come a little earlier.