Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson: The Concert Version

GRADE: A-

Music and lyrics by Michael Friedman. Written and directed by Alex Timbers. The Public Theater. (CLOSED)

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson addresses the debate of the merits of our seventh president, but positive reviews show that critics find little to debate about the production. Critics enjoy its send-up of Spring Awakening, Alex Timber's streamlined history, Michael Friedman's emo score, and the cast, especially Benjamin Walker who they find particularly charismatic. The only fault critics find is that the show falls apart a little bit towards the end. Time Out New York's David Cote, on the other hand, thinks the last ten minutes are the brightest point in the show.

Talkin' Broadway A+
(Matthew Murray) Its target isn’t just still-controversial seventh President of the United States, but also Spring Awakening. Well, not just the Steven Sater-Duncan Sheik Tony winner, but shows like it. With (intentionally) amateurish acting, (intentionally) poorly- and non-plotted and flat-out disconnected songs, and an (intentionally) irreverent attitude toward subjects of abject seriousness, this absorbingly effective riff on emo narrative by Alex Timbers and Michael Friedman is as much a comment on the ragged quality of this kind of storytelling as it is a story itself. And because of its intelligence, its wit, and the undercurrent of maturity that buoys its childishness, this is in no way the pandering, least-common-denominator evening it mocks every chance it gets. But there’s a more important fusion at work here than simply musical theatre and whine rock. Librettist-director Timbers is the artistic director of Les Freres Corbusier and Michael Friedman is the house composer of The Civilians, and the uniting of these two downtown titans on a project of this audacity is a match made in theatre utopia. Timbers’s knack for rampantly visionary entertainment and Friedman’s grip on pungent social commentary combine to make something deeper, richer, and hotter than either has previously devised alone, all within a searing context that commands your attention and demands your assent to its absurdities.

CurtainUp A+
(Jenny Sandman) Les Freres Corbusier is known for its irreverently clever productions, including an adaptation of Hedda Gabler with robots. Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson carries on this spirit. The ensemble is one of the finest in New York right now, and they're all as happily hormonal and outré as Jackson himself. Look for finely caricatured performances of James Monroe (Ben Steinfeld), Henry Clay (Bryce Pinkham), Martin Van Buren (Lucas Near-Verbrugghe), John Quincy Adams (Jeff Hiller) and John Calhoun (Darren Goldstein). A delightfully cluttered set by Donyale Werle and extremely loud guitar (Justin Levine) and drums (Kevin Garcia) complete the party atmosphere. Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is the most fun I've had at a play this year, and at $10, it's the best bargain in town. If only all our presidents could be as entertaining and good for our pocketbooks.

Theatermania A
(Brian Scott Lipton) Who knew Martin Van Buren (the hilarious Lucas Near-Verbrugghe) loved Twinkies? Or that the troubled Jackson (Benjamin Walker) once indulged in one of his ritual self-bleedings while Cher's "Song for the Lonely" played in the background. More realistically, who knew that Walker -- who gave distinctly earnest performances in the recent Broadway revivals of Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Inherit the Wind -- posseses the kind of rock star charisma to rival Adam Lambert. (True, some people in Los Angeles -- where Walker starred in an earlier and considerably longer version of this show -- might have that knowledge.) Not only is the actor's striking and surprisingly deeply felt performance a revelation, Walker turns out to be the kind of anchor needed to keep the musical's excesses from becoming overwhelming.

AmericanTheaterWeb A
(Andy Propst) The piece, a co-presentation with California's Center Theatre Group and New York's adventurous and iconoclastic Les Freres Corbusier, unfurls within the confines of an environment that looks like an East Village rocker club that's been decorated with an eye toward the rustic 19th century (scenic design by Donyale Werle). The dichotomy of the visuals beautifully fits the show's duality which relates history with a swirl of rock music and which continually exposes the contemporary parallels between Jackson's time and our own. Emily Rebholz's costumes similarly reflect this bifurcation of periods. Early on, the indefatigable cast sport items that invoke the period, but in the way in which children's cowboys and Indians costumes do. After Jackson has reached the White House (on his second time out), they wear what might be best described as downtown monochrome chic.

Just Shows To Go You A
(Patrick Lee) As staged by Alex Timbers, it’s silly and smartypants at the same time. The show’s conceit has Jackson in strutting rock god drag which not only amusingly illustrates his celebrity and resonance with the people but also allows Benjamin Walker to rock out old school in his thoroughly winning breakout performance.

Backstage A-
(Adam R. Perlman) Writer-director Alex Timbers has a strong sense of theatrical economy, fast-forwarding and hitting the pause button at the right times. We see Jackson as a boy sandwiched between the carcasses of his dead parents (yup, Indians got 'em) and negotiating that age-old line between work and family... Michael Friedman's songs—sometimes seamlessly integrated, sometimes jumping out like pictures in a pop-up book—provide what the moment needs... Through the visual quotes and the semi-ironic Simpsons-style satire, something fairly rare emerges: a complex musical with a conflicted point of view. The creators have trouble choosing sides in the Jackson debate—populist hero or "American Hitler"?—and their attempt to treat their ambivalence honestly leads to a third act that lacks the breezy energy of what came before. I'm not sure the shift works, but it's nice to see a rise-and-fall story that isn't clichéd—the story of how the people came together behind one of their own, a man who defeated a corrupt political cabal that thought him unfit for the Oval Office, only to perhaps prove his critics correct.

New York Post A-
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) One of the great things about Timbers is that no matter how nuttily downtown his shows appear, they're held together by an old-fashioned sense of craft, starting with strong casting. Benjamin Walker, pink cheeks aglow under shaggy black curls, gives a great anchor performance. He's onstage almost the entire time, and carries the show with boundless energy. He has to: The entire thing unfurls at "Looney Tunes" speed, and with a similar sense of anarchic joy and cross-cultural mayhem. A scene in which Jackson and his wife, Rachel (Maria Elena Ramirez), indulge in some cutting is underscored by a tune incorporating Susan Sontag's "illness as metaphor" theory. (Why Friedman hasn't been on Broadway yet is befuddling.)

Variety A-
(Marilyn Stasio) Terrible things happen to the Storyteller, which is all to the good, since the smart subtext of the show has to do with narrative itself -- the process by which we perpetuate the legends we create. So while Jackson's life and career are rendered faithfully enough in broad outline, the information is refracted through multiple information sources, from the Storyteller lady and the tall-tale tellers in the no-name saloon to the CNN voices (of Lisa Joyce and others) breathlessly pumping up election night frenzy, and those screamers who conduct the vote count on "American Idol." The creatives are nothing if not democratic in their contempt for how we make, market and destroy our heroes. And in the end, it's the Storyteller who sticks the knife in the Jackson legend by reminding the president that, even today, scholars can't decide whether he was a great warrior and a true populist leader or a ruthless, land-grabbing imperialist and "a genocidal murderer" -- the "American Hitler" who displaced indigenous Indian tribes and wiped out the entire Cherokee Nation. The academic jury may still be out on that question, but down at the Public, this hot little show is putting on one hell of a wake for a fallen hero.

The New York Times A-
(Ben Brantley) Emo, for those of you who don’t download your songs, is a postpunk rock variant that wears its shattered heart on its tattered sleeve, throbbing with the narcissism, masochism and frustrated powerlessness that come with being a teenager. The closest Broadway has come to incorporating emo was in Duncan Sheik’s score for the late (and much missed) “Spring Awakening,” a show about the agony of young lust. “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson” — which runs through May 24 as part of the Public LAB season and, at $10 a ticket, is one of the best bargains in town — plies that sensibility to evoke the oohs and ouches of a new country’s growing pains. (The first lyric of its first song: “Why wouldn’t you ever go out with me in high school?”) And its scrappy, two-fisted title character (played by the lean, mean Benjamin Walker) is presented as the perfect national avatar of the period: an angry, enthusiastic and very hungry overgrown boy with a need for instant gratification and a whopping sense of entitlement.

The Daily News B+
(Joe Dziemianowicz) Writer/director Alex Timbers and composer-lyricist Michael Friedman borrow a page from the era-spanning "Spring Awakening" to create a satirical history lesson that presents Jackson (a charismatic Benjamin Walker) in modern terms with catchy songs and spiky, if often sophomoric, humor. It's a sort of "My So-Called Presidency" as it recalls Old Hickory's childhood, military career, grass-roots rise to the White House, plus his bigamist marriage and his infamous dealings with Native Americans.

The New Yorker B+
(John Lahr) The quirky humor of the knowing production style, however, is also the company’s problem. In the course of ninety minutes, a certain lyric and visual monotony settles in. Whether Les Freres Corbusier can travel north of Eighth Street will depend on whether Timbers and Friedman can add some emotional variety and characterization to their high camp. But, for the present grave moment, rollicking, in any shape or form, will do.

Bloomberg News B-
(John Simon) The show thrives on the sometimes funny, sometimes merely gross. Les Freres refer to it as “sophomoric” and “favoring the anarchic, the rude, the juvenile,” though that pre-emptive strike isn’t necessarily exculpatory or pardonable. Still, some of it is really funny. Thus Indian-killer Jackson addresses Chief Black Eagle: “You people are despicable creatures! You show no loyalty to anything, your music is terrible, your table manners suck, and your painting skills are absolutely dreadful. I mean look at this,” he says, pulling out a primitive drawing of a buffalo. “No artistic vision. You’re savages; you’re soulless, godless, and well you get the point.”

Time Out New York C+
(David Cote) Despite several smart-and-bouncy Friedman tunes and an ace cast—headed by cute, pouty Benjamin Walker in the title role—the overall proportion of snark to dark is distressingly off. Timbers keeps the action moving at cartoon speed, but he might have cut some tunes and beefed up the book. The last ten minutes are the best, when the disillusioned and power-mad Jackson offers Native Americans a final solution. At such times, one glimpses the sort of irreverent, complex musical this could have been.

Talkin' Broadway A+ 14; CurtainUp A+ 14; Theatermania A 13; AmericanTheaterWeb A 13; Just Shows To Go You A 13; Backstage A- 12; New York Post A- 12; Variety A- 12; The New York Times A- 12; The Daily News B+ 11; The New Yorker B+ 11; Bloomberg News B- 9; TONY C+ 8; TOTAL: 154/13 = 11.85 (A-)

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This Beautiful City

GRADE: B

By Steven Cosson & Jim Lewis, music by Michael Friedman. Directed by Steven Cosson. The Civilians at the Vineyard Theatre. (CLOSED)

The Civilians' newest docu-theater/musical piece about the evangelical-Christian capital Colorado Springs gets a mostly respectful hearing but few resounding alleluias. Most critics appreciate the show's surprisingly evenhanded approach, while others perceive the lack of a strong point of view as a deficit, and more than a few feel they've heard and seen it all before. The outlier thus far is Talkin' Broadway's Matthew Murray, who apparently has no trouble perceiving the Civilians' point of view.

New Yorker A
With wit and empathy, the group reënacts, splices, and, in inspired instances, musicalizes the interviews they conducted of local residents, from a transgendered woman struggling to reconcile her Christian faith to the God-fearing folks at RHOP—Revolution House of Prayer. Aside from their theatrical panache, the Civilians deserve credit as top-notch journalists, creating portraits that are vivid, agenda-free, and marked by a benevolent irony. Their investigation probes not only the absurdity of American dogma but the unquenchable thirst for redemption that propels it.

Backstage A
(Adam R. Perlman) Haggard's fall from cozy Coloradoan grace consumes large chunks of the second act, but in the first we get to know the people of Colorado Springs, who simply think of Haggard as Pastor Ted...The script by Jim Lewis and director Steven Cosson does well to capture that without depicting shrill insensitivity versus shrill insensitivity. But it's in uncovering lesser-seen details where the Civilians are invaluable: the way an agnostic youth accepts the church because it's just easier, how a transgendered woman forges a new relationship with God, the cycle where openness leads to repression leads to openness. The company...has a way with these roles that's halfway between Method reenactment and an impression of a close friend. It's compassionate--you must, of course, love anyone you play--but not so much as to bury the cosmic absurdity...Perhaps the best perspective is that of Neil Patel's set design. Gazing down from above on Colorado Springs, it's a god's-eye view. We can project what we want onto the individual houses, but mainly we're reminded of how little we know of what goes on inside them.

Variety A-
(Marilyn Stasio) Performing entirely without attitude, company members inhabit the personae of local residents who sat down for interviews about their churches, their political beliefs and their glassy-eyed commitment to their faith. There's a nowhere feeling to Neil Patel's abstract set of plasticine cubes, stacked against a distant skyline, that from time to time light up in violently vivid hues...If there's any sly criticism or condescension in these admirably open portraits, it lurks in the grotesquely awful lyrics of Michael Friedman's amusing pastiche score...The company proves much too stingy with testimony about Dobson's super-influential Focus on the Family.

The New York Times B+
(Charles Isherwood) Engaging, inquisitive and evenhanded...You might assume that members of a hip New York theater company would descend on the country’s epicenter of evangelism like a swarm of junior Michael Moores, wielding tape recorders like rapiers, backpacks stuffed full of snark. But the Civilians, known for the long-running revue “Gone Missing” and other documentary shows, have generally used humor to illuminate our follies rather than to sneer at our frailties...Emily Ackerman is terrific in a couple of memorable roles...As directed by Mr. Cosson “This Beautiful City” is perhaps too inclusive and loosely structured.

Time Out NY B+
(Adam Feldman) Much of this enlightening and often moving collage draws a Venn diagram of religious faith and homosexuality, with special attention to where they overlap...By Civilians standards, This Beautiful City is circumscribed: Its borders of time and place give it something like a plot. Spurred by Michael Friedman’s irregular musical interludes (which add more color than depth this time), Cosson’s six performers play dozens of characters, and all have shining moments...In less capable hands, the show might have slid into slippery condescension, but Cosson and his company are too smart for that. They’re on the side of the angels.

Associated Press B+
(Michael Kuchwara) A lively docudrama...a two-act parade of speeches, some more insightful and theatrical than others, which trace the movement's rise in popularity and political power...features a genial, twangy score by Michael Friedman...Not surprisingly, the production's most dramatic moments occur during an interview with Haggard's son Marcus--well-played by Stephen Plunkett--as he haltingly talks about New Life and his father's problems...To its credit, "This Beautiful Life" doesn't sensationalize. There's an evenhandedness to its presentation, even when it tarries too long with some of the more strident evangelicals. That generosity of spirit seems fitting for a show that examines religion in all its conflicted diversity.

New York Post B+
(Frank Scheck) In terms of provocative material, you can't do better than religion, drugs and gay sex. Naturally, the scandal dominates this new documentary music-theater piece by the iconoclastic company...At times, there's an annoying self-consciousness to the proceedings, as when a member (Alison Weller) of an organization dubbed the Revolution House of Prayer says, "I don't think of myself as a religious freak...but if I see a woman in your play with a big bee hairdo and Tammy Faye makeup, I'm going to know it's me"...While "This Beautiful City" feels a little after the fact and lacks the conceptual originality of such previous pieces by The Civilians as "Gone Missing," it's an entertaining and thoughtful portrait of a large segment of society that's all too easy to ignore from this side of the country.

NY Daily News B
(Joe Dziemianowicz) A humbly praiseworthy piece of investigative theater...[The Haggard] scandal, and its aftershocks, get a lot of attention in the two-hour show. Perhaps too much, considering that the case is so well-known and doesn't really illuminate the play's big picture about faith and freedom and the often blurry line between personal beliefs and politics. Nonetheless, what writers Steve Cosson (who also directs) and Jim Lewis, who conducted interviews along with the cast, have come up with is a quirky, occasionally fascinating collage...These Colorado folks are marvelously brought to life in monologues and songs by six terrific actors, who all play several parts. Michael Friedman's songs vary in flavor, from country-Western and pop to grabby Christian rock..."This Beautiful City" isn't as fresh or deliver the cumulative wallop of the Civilians' "Gone Missing," which concerned loss, but it earns a hosanna or two for evenhandedness.

CurtainUp B
(Elyse Sommer) Though one would expect a group like the Civilians to tilt towards satirizing the more disturbing elements of excessive religiosity, especially its influence on the body politic, the right wingers are not presented as monsters and the power of faith is given as fair a hearing as the right to be different and independent. The rather touching monologue by Ted Haggard's son Marcus is a case in point. Still, a theater piece like this tends to be rather bland and emotionally uninvolving without the fire generated by a more opinionated script, and it's only the awsomely [sic] versatile performances and the liveliness added by Friedman's songs and the dynamic staging, that keeps this from happening. Each of the six actors who make up the cast is a star, with perhaps Stephen Plunkett and Marsha Stephanie Blake the standouts...This Beautiful City would benefit from being trimmed to the same 90 minutes as the long-running and more generally entertaining Gone Missing.

Village Voice B-
(Michael Feingold) A sort of tentative younger brother to Tectonic Theater's The Laramie Project...The Civilians went to Colorado Springs looking for a reality to map, and found themselves with a story to tell instead...The shift from panoramic survey to linear narrative makes This Beautiful City bumpier in structure and less certain in focus than it should be. Like many groups today, the Civilians get itchy about making narrative too tidy. So the show skitters through some digressive moments, particularly at the end where, after a piece that wraps up the narrative's ironies perfectly, it dwindles into anticlimax. Uncertainty, too, haunts Michael Friedman's lively songs...Much of the staging (by Cosson, with choreography by John Carrafa) has ease, power, and clarity, making the slacker moments seem all the more a pity. A more purposive trip through, centered on the story rather than the place, could have made this intelligent, interesting piece a real gem.

Offoffonline B-
(Laura Palotie) The work certainly offers a rich palette of viewpoints, but by the time it reaches the frantic worship scenes of its second act, exhaustion sets in...Because the show’s creators directly quote real-life individuals, This Beautiful City is notably ambiguous in its satirical moments—and in its moral message...If anything, it appears to be too concerned with presenting each and every side of a community built on idealistic extremes. The lineup of character introductions feels endless at points, and despite the strong performances, makes it difficult for the audience to feel genuine attachment to any particular character. If its script could benefit from a series of edits, the show’s visuals are nothing short of flawless...Had the writers featured a smaller cast of characters and slipped into fewer detours with park rangers and prayer groups, this alluring work could have delivered a more focused punch.

Theatermania C+
(David Finkle) While the company's findings, presented here by way of both monologues (crafted by Steven Cosson and Jim Lews [sic] from actual interviews by the company) and Michael Friedman's ditties, are definitely attention-grabbing, the news they're reporting is a little late in the day...Under the consistently fluid direction of Cosson (aided by John Carrafa's choreography), the cast...have stepped forward with their impressive skills to present the kind of balanced view of a troubled population that Anna Deavere Smith established as a valid theatrical style with her seminal works. Unfortunately, their work is somewhat undercut by Friedman's songs, which are surprisingly generic...Meanwhile, set designer Neil Patel presents Colorado Springs as a blocky gray unit suggesting fairly modern facades that lighting designer David Weiner occasionally transforms into even more abstract shapes with flashing colors...Ultimately a perfectly acceptable evening in the theater, but one hopes the ever-inquisitive troupe will soon serve up a better future documentary.

Newsday C-
(Linda Winer) An intriguing notion but, ultimately, a pretty shapeless and self-explanatory musical journey through the minds and hearts of the cultural and religious phenomenon in the shadow of Pikes Peak. Six chameleonic talents transform with compassion and wit into a variety of believers and the residents who resent them. The company just happened to have been doing its research when Haggard was outed internationally as what someone calls a "closet case and a meth queen." Although a great stroke of journalistic luck, the gay-hypocrite sensationalism appears to have derailed author-director Steven Cosson and co-writer Jim Lewis from a deeper investigation of a community unfazed by concerns about the separation of church and state.

Nytheatre.com C-
(Stan Richardson) This quasi-musical docudrama about the citizens of Colorado Springs and their passionate faith or furious faithlessness in the evangelical movement is provocative to me solely in the sense that it did not provoke me in the least and I think it should've...What am I expecting, the Civilians to revolutionize the form of documentary theatre? It'd be nice and perhaps that was their intention. But it is almost impossible to do when such a company seems so overimpressed with the fortunate coincidence of the Haggard scandal breaking in the very midst of their fieldwork that they have overlooked the not-deep-enough-penetration of their own material...This Beautiful City includes highly nuanced performances.

Talkin' Broadway D+
(Matthew Murray) The remotest, most condescendingly partisan, and least involving Civilians piece yet. Although The Civilians don’t directly attack evangelicals, they hardly present them in a positive light. Most of the time they don’t even try...The most sympathetic figure is a pre-op male-to-female transsexual who speaks passionately of being discriminated against and unceremoniously fired - played, it’s worth noting, by a female (Emily Ackerman)...Presenting a biological male as an outright female is insulting to the audience...Such legerdemain paints This Beautiful City as agenda theatre rather than documentary theatre. But worse, it makes it uninvolving theatre...Cosson’s staging is smart and concise on Neil Patel’s mod set; David Weiner’s anxious lights complete the potent mixture edginess and safety. Friedman's combination hoedown-raveup songs are evanescently catchy, and John Carrafa’s bare-bones choreography is functional but nondescript...But no one involved convinces you that this story needs to be told this way and with this attitude.

New Yorker A 13; Backstage A 13; Variety A- 12; The New York Times B+ 11; TONY B+ 11; Associated Press B+ 11; NYP B+ 10; NY Daily News B 10; CurtainUp B 10; Village Voice B- 9; Offoffonline B- 9; Theatermania C+ 8; Newsday C- 6; Nytheatre C- 6; Talkin' Broadway D+ 5; TOTAL: 144/15=9.6 (B)

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