BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON • New Line Theatre

I can hardly think of a better way to catch a break from the onslaught of this year's presidential campaign than to check out this saucy, contemporary, in-your-face look at our seventh president.  BBAJ opens New Line Theatre's 22nd Season, and this show is right up its alley.  Andrew Jackson's legacy includes praise for his military victories as an army general against the British and Spanish in the country's adolescence, helming the formation of the Democratic Party and winning the presidency by America's first popular vote in 1829.  It also includes the criticism he garnered for his forced relocation and devastation of Native Americans and his support of slavery.  I mean hell, during his campaign his opponents referred to him as a jackass.  According to the director's notes, "He was equal parts Barack Obama (charismatic populist), John McCain (crusty war hero), Sarah Palin (loud, clumsy outsider), and George W. Bush (cocky, loyal, and confident)."  He's a very controversial ex-president and the political commentary that runs throughout this rock musical serves as a constant ironic reminder of the parallels between the early nineteenth-century and the new millennium.

BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON • Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre

When you first walk into the 1078 seat Jacobs, you're met with a theatre that has been adorned with fairy lights, stuffed moose heads, bears and a horse hanging upside down over the orchestra seats.  There are portraits of dead presidents all over the place, and all kinds of assorted stuff on the stage.  This visual onslaught perfectly sets up BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON, an "emo" rock musical that looks at how this roughneck frontiersman wound up in the White House.

This cheeky in-your-face downtown musical, recently brought uptown, examines the controversial seventh president of the United States, during a time when the country was in its adolescence -- in the language and music of today, with Jackson being portrayed as an irresistible tight jeans wearing rock star type.  "Old Hickory"'s life is presented in a series of scenes (by a narrator in a motorized wheelchair, infatuated with Jackson) that come off more like skits, with songs like "Populism, Yea, Yea!" and "Ten Little Indians", performed with boundless energy by the young cast and the onstage 3 piece band.  The highlights of Andrew Jackson's life (played by a very compelling Benjamin Walker), include him being orphaned early in his life, his military career, his rise to power as the people's president, and his infamous forced relocation of Native Americans.  There are tons of anachronisms and parallel lines drawn in the show, like when Jackson, dripping with sexual energy, tells us about his "stimulus package".