January 22, 2008

Musical comedy about Jackson

Bloody Bloody Andrew JacksonBloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, an explosive, soot-black musical comedy now making its world premiere at the Kirk Douglas Theater, is an absurdist delight reminiscent of Christopher Durang's looniest works.

The script, by Alex Timbers (who also directs), could come from an episode of South Park. Left orphaned by Indians' arrows, the young Jackson (Benjamin Walker) branches out into the great frontier with an antipathy for the American Indian. Slaughtering these "savages" becomes his life's mission. He also hates the pomposity found in Washington politics, and so forms the Democratic Party and steals the presidency away from incumbent John Quincy Adams.

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