Step 1: Tell them the music is rock – emo rock – and it is loud and fast. Tight jeans and lots of guitars. No Oklahoma show tunes here. Plus the lyrics contain lots of four-letter words.

Step 2: Promise them action… arrows and bullets, blood and sex and political intrigue.

Step 3: Forget seeing a big touring musical in a large barn. Shake things up and  see a show that is in your face in a smaller space – like San Jose Stage Company.

Interested? Then grab your date and head for The Stage’s searing satire of the life of Andrew Jackson and the ridiculousness of our modern political parade. Even if you slept through most of American History 101, you’ll remember some of the atrocities this guy got up to before wrestling the presidency from the wiggy guys in power.

The all-singing, all-dancing, guitar-wielding cast take on countless roles which straddle the centuries. Johnathan Rhys Williams plays the determined Jackson with just the right mix of conviction and confusion. Beneath a pomp of big hair, Allison F. Rich belts out some great numbers. If your special someone likes Zoolander, you will get an extra kick out of Jef Valentine’s twinkie-nibbling Martin Van Buren.

The show races past in just 90 minutes without intermission and after the last corpse is dragged from the stage – you’ll still be grinning.

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson

now through July 29

www.thestage.org