[img]7|left|||no_popup[/img]The biggest surprise in Bloody Bloody Andrews Jackson is that the audience did not – repeat: did not – give it a standing ovation. Was it a different audience? Had I been transported to an alternate universe? Whatever the answer, the audience stayed seated until the cast took its one and only bo and the green light was given to raid the food in the lobby…wait a minute…food in the lobby? That could explain it…
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Benjamin Walker in the title role at the Kirk Douglas Theatre.
Regardless, as much as I admire the Kirk Douglas Theatre’s willingness to experiment, and as much as I think set designer Robert Brill should be given wet, sloppy kisses for the extraordinary work he did – a diorama making up the rear of the set, bolstered by visual effects, is 100 percent spiffy – Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (BBAJ from now on) is a miss, a miss, a most palpable miss. ‘Tis a shame. The cast, headlined by the charismatic Benjamin Walker, is good, and the music, though spotty, does emit a good rockin’ vibe – even if that whole “emo” thing is a bit of a lark.
Other than the 20 minutes in which the play remembers it is theatre and not merely sketch comedy, most of BBAJ feels like a high school musical put on by class clowns. Gags range from the cheap, like portraying Martin Van Buren as a foppish homosexual and Spaniards portrayed as lisping cartoons, to failed black humour, like the running gag involving a pompous wheelchair-bound narrator. When her narration becomes too annoying for Jackson, he shoots her in the neck. And if that isn’t funny enough, she comes crawling back across the stage to pull herself up a podium only to be indirectly knocked out by Jackson. (Beating up disabled people to get laughs: congratulations, Center Theater Group, you are the paragon of comedy.) While BBAJ does have its amusing moments, my feelings were mostly dominated by the urge to check the time and a single, uncharitable thought that I generally avoid sharing in reviews but will make an exception for in this case: How stupid. The relentless need to make a joke out of everything sucks the drama from the controversy of Andrew Jackson’s life and presidency.
Cartoon History
By the end, the realization hits: Everything we need to know about the Andrew Jackson controversy can be gleamed from the program before the production even starts. That 20 minutes of serious theatre merely dramatizes what we already know going in, namely, that Jackson, a veteran of wars with the Indians, was caught in a serious moral dilemma in the matter of forcibly removing Indians from their lands. But instead of zeroing in on the various facets of Jackson’s life and politics and performing a historical post-mortem, we get a broad, sketch comedy outline of the facts, a cartoon history of the 7th president of the United States. That it climaxes with a clumsy, in-your-face analogy to President Bush does nothing but earn rolled eyes for its obviousness, however much one agrees with the view that Bush’s presidency is nothing short of a catastrophe.
It’s not clear, then, what BBAJ is striving to accomplish. Highlight the plight of Indians? Reveal how U.S. history isn’t all about roses and wine? Demonstrate how the past (Jackson) repeats itself in the present (Bush)? No, no, and no. Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is just too bloody bloody simplistic in its approach to handle these weighty topics.
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. Written and directed by Alex Timbers. Music and Lyrics by Michael Friedman. Starring Anjali Bhimani, Will Collyer, Diane Davis, Zack DeZon, Erin Felgar, Kristin Findley, Jimmy Fowlie, Patrick Gomez, Sebastian Gonzalez, Will Greenberg, Greg Hildreth, Brian Hostenske, Adam O’Byrne, Matthew Rocheleau, Ben Steinfeld, Ian Unterman, Benjamin Walker and Taylor Wilcox. On stage at the Kirk Douglas Theatre until Sunday, Feb. 17.www.centertheatergroup.org
