★★★★★ “An instant classic.” – Time Out New York
Oh, Mary! is a dark comedy about a miserable, suffocated Mary Todd Lincoln in the weeks leading up to Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Unrequited yearning, alcoholism, and suppressed desires abound in this 80-minute one-act play that finally examines the forgotten life and dreams of Mrs. Lincoln, through the lens of an idiot (playwright Cole Escola).
Declared “one of the best comedies in years” by The New York Times, Oh, Mary! has been heralded as the funniest play on Broadway by the New York Post, Entertainment Weekly, Variety, Time Out New York, and The Guardian. “It’s a bona fide phenomenon,” raves The Wall Street Journal, and Variety calls it “unquestionably the funniest, gayest, campiest play Broadway has seen in years.”
Oh, Mary! is now extended through June 29, 2025. Cole Escola dons the bratty curls through January 19, and Emmy nominee Betty Gilpin (“GLOW,” “Mrs. Davis”) stars as Mary Todd Lincoln beginning January 21 through March 16.
Escola’s splendidly nasty queer romp has hiked up its petticoats and staggered uptown from a sold-out run at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, goosing a sleepy Broadway summer. I’m happy to report that although director Sam Pinkleton leveled up the production values (particularly in the musical finale), Oh, Mary! remains the same vicious, dirty-minded, bad-taste farce that delighted camp aficionados last winter. In a theater scene squeezed between the Scylla of nonprofit precarity and Charybdis of commercial desperation, Escola and their team offer audacity, flair, and a homing instinct for the audience funny bone.
“Oh, Mary!” is directed by Sam Pinkleton at a breakneck speed that both allows room for the best jokes to harvest their share of laughter while never letting even the lesser gags land with a thud. The entire cast excels at physical comedy, particularly Escola, whose Mary, after seducing her acting teacher on top of Abraham’s desk, must find a dignified way to descend from it, with ingeniously amusing results. I have a pretty low threshold for the coarseness of much low comedy, and plenty of the humor in “Oh, Mary!” is so low it qualifies as subterranean. But Escola’s brilliantly loopy writing and knockabout performance—which also recalls the great gifts of Carol Burnett—won me over.
2024 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway Premiere Production Off-Broadway |
2024 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2023 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Featured Performer in an Off-Broadway Play | Conrad Ricamora |
Videos