Cole Escola’s OH, MARY! On Broadway Is a Stupid Masterpiece — Review

“You see I’m a very well known niche cabaret performer,” says Cole Escola in their sensational Broadway debut. This sentence, technically uttered by Mary Todd Lincoln (because that’s how acting works), zings through the audience.

A Broadway audience. Watching Cole Escola. In a show they wrote. And star in. About Mary Todd Lincoln. Played by Cole Escola. This is the stuff of dreams.

A “very well known niche cabaret performer”’ is actually an excellent way to describe Cole Escola. For those familiar with their previous work — such as their copious downtown appearances at The Duplex and Joe’s Pub (Maven Crawford - anyone?), a treasure chest of a YouTube channel (The Goblin Commuter of Hoboken - anyone?), and iconic guest-star appearances on that tv show your cool friend watches (Chassie on At Home With Amy Sedaris - anyone???) — Escola’s Broadway debut is LONG-awaited. For those not familiar, thank your little stars for how lucky you are to be witnessing the revolution.

Yes, the future of Broadway is here and it’s Cole Escola’s stupid masterpiece Oh, Mary! 

In short, Oh, Mary! is about Mary Todd Lincoln in the weeks leading up to Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. But wait! She’s a former cabaret singer, current drunk, and future star. In the background, America is at war and President Lincoln is gay (but working on it!). In an attempt to distract his wife from drinking and/or returning to the cabaret stage to perform her madcap medleys, he hires an acting teacher to show Mary the ropes of the t h e a t r e. “The theatre, while it’s not exactly respectable either, has a certain air of cultural importance to it” says Abe. Move over Hamilton and Suffs, we have a new presidential family on Broadway!

We first meet Mary on a ravenous hunt for the booze she’s hidden in the oval office. She throws herself across the stage in a furious rage - ripping pillows, throwing papers, grunting loudly. Like a feral hog, she sniffs out the whiskey in Abe’s desk drawer. After a hairpin, letter opener, and giant book don’t do the trick, she puts her leg up on the desk and, fire poker in-hand, uses all of her might to bust into the drawer and… oh, it’s actually open. A roar erupts in the audience. Escola miraculously sustains this level of spectacular slapstick throughout the 80-min show both in their portrayal of Mary and in their nimble writing. 

The small-but-mighty supporting cast are a perfect comedic jungle gym for Escola. Conrad Ricamora is transformative as the god-fearing, boy-loving President Lincoln. James Scully is Mary’s dashing acting teacher, Bianca Leigh is Mary’s tormented chaperone, and Tony Macht is Lincoln’s stoic assistant. With direction by Sam Pinkleton, the cast crash and clamor into each other, with microscopic precision. A single mug brings down the house.

Pinkleton and Escola are smart to give Mary the most flexibility between period and contemporary performance, sharply keeping her the star of the show. In contrast, for example, is Mary’s button-upped chaperone, portrayed by Leigh with a historic flair and a knowing wink. Bored with her life, Mary asks her chaperone to confess a secret and catches a twinkle in her eye. “A smile happens with the mouth, not the eyes,” replies her chaperone. “Oh shut up, dumbass.” replies Mary. 

Similar to Escola’s previous work, Oh, Mary! straddles the line between referential and reverent to abstract and faithless. It’s how, early on, Mary goes from a romanticized, down-on-her luck woman who drinks paint thinner to a possessed demon who re-slurps up the paint thinner… and her vomit. This rapid ping pong is aided beautifully on the farcical set by dots and playful lighting by Cha See. The costumes by Holly Pierson (Escola’s gown is Astor Yang) and wigs by Leah J. Loukas also are a visual delight. Escola’s every move is shocking, which keeps the show trucking along to Ford’s Theatre until… well the rest is history.

The show is also a piece of history. While transferring a peculiar Off-Broadway jewel to a commercial run is not unusual, Oh, Mary! does stand apart from its peers on Broadway. When our Chief Critic Juan A. Ramirez reviewed the show Off-Broadway, he said, if he were inclined to look for a deeper meaning in Oh, Mary!, “it is a rebuttal against the legitimacy, good taste, and ‘straightness’ (if you can believe it) of most self-serious art.” If I were inclined to look further, and verge on sentimentality (yuck), the fact that this piece of radically queer comedy has become the buzziest show of the season is a hopeful sign of work to come.

With the world finally catching up with Escola’s work, let’s hope more people travel all over the world to see Mary’s “short legs and long medleys.” Or at least enough to turn a strictly limited run into a Broadway mainstay. 

Oh, Mary! is now in performance at the Lyceum Theatre on West 45th Street in New York City.