Thursday, October 22, 2015

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson

If you know absolutely nothing about Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and you just listen to the recording without understanding the tone behind this, it could be a disaster for you. What I need you to understand is that it's a comedy and that it does NOT take itself seriously. If you think it is taking itself seriously, you won't like it.

I know its an interpretation of historical events, so not everything played out exactly like it does in this musical, but holy god did I learn a lot about Andrew Jackson and what a monster he was. 

But, let's put the actual history aside and talk about the PLAY, because we have to. Andrew is hilarious and ridiculous. I wish so much that I could play this role. He is a fucking badass. He is a whiny baby. He loves his wife like crazy. He loves the common man. He loves killing people. I watched a bootleg of BBAJ a long time ago and I went from laughing and saying, "oh man, this is so dumb" (in a good way) to "Ohhhh shit. This musical is getting really HEAVY!" It's really, really good.

The songs are, across the board, fantastic. The only problem with them is that they're all so short! I think the runtime of the cast recording is less than 30 minutes with 13 songs. They're slightly stretched out in the musical, as scenes tend to happen in the middle of several of them, but still. This music is actually REALLY good -- I wish there was more of it.

BBAJ is a great example of a contemporary musical. Rock or traditional, original or established, things should be written like this. We live in the world we live in. BBAJ acknowledges that and uses it. It's authentically cool and smart and funny without taking itself too seriously. 

My favorite song is "I'm So That Guy", in case you were wondering. I listened to it at the gym once on repeat and it made me run so fast that I ran 3 miles in 25 minutes (I normally run a 9 minute mile).

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
Music and Lyrics by Michael Friedman
Book by Alex Timbers

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