Populism, Yeah Yeah! Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
I saw Les Freres Corbusier's Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson last night at the Public, and it was great!
I've long been a fan of Les Freres work, and I've seen a bunch, including the amazing Dance Dance Revolution over the winter, Hell House, and A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant). Most of their shows are very hard to describe, but are almost always hilharious and incredibly irreverent, which is my favorite kind of show.
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is entertaining and informative, bringing to light many true details about our wild seventh president, while simultaneously mixing the earnestness of a summer tourist-town historical drama with the awkwardness of historical figures breaking into modern song during Spring Awakening. Oh, and they actually worked into the script the lyrics of a TLC song.
I saw the earlier one-night-only concert version of this show back in October at Joe's Pub, which, obviously was before the election. It was interesting then to look at a historical "good 'ol boy" in the white house in the 1800's in light of the Bush presidency; its equally interesting to look at a "man of the people" with Obama in power now.
The set, costumes, lighting and sound were all great (and I'm so jealous of the sound designer, Bart Fasbender, since he gets to work with these guys), and the music by Michael Friedman is fantastic.
I'll continue to see anything by Les Freres, because they consistently create a unique and wonderful art that exploits the true strengths of the theatre while stripping away (or ridiculing) traditional theatrical pretension. It's running through May 24, and it's only $10, so go see it if you can!
And see some of their work soon, because the show's writer and director, Alex Timbers, says in his bio that he is developing a sitcom for Fox, so the world of live performance may soon lose this amazing talent.