The hottest ticket in town features a hilariously scheming Mary Todd Lincoln who dreams of returning to her cabaret roots, but she’s stuck aimlessly wandering around the White House while unhappily married to Abe Lincoln.
The deliciously demented mind behind this inspired lunacy is Cole Escola (who uses they/them pronouns), who wrote and stars as the titular subject opposite Broadway star Conrad Ricamora.
In a recent interview, Escola, 37, told the New York Post that the genesis for “Oh, Mary!” came about over a decade ago in 2009.
“Oh, Mary!” Emilio Madrid
“I loved the idea so much that I was scared to write it,” they shared. “Because I wanted it to be as perfect as I had it in my mind.”
But the COVID-19 pandemic helped the writing process along.
“I had nothing going on,” Escola continued. “So I was like, ‘OK, you idiot, write it.'”
Interestingly, Escola had no idea that the Lincolns’ marriage was infamously stormy or that Mary had mental health issues.
“I didn’t even know any of that,” they confessed. “Basically, until rehearsals started and then I started reading some things. I thought I was making up a completely off interpretation of her and then I was like, ‘Well, maybe there’s more in common with the actual Mary Todd than I think.'”
Mary was put into an asylum by her son but was eventually released into her sister’s care and declared competent to manage her affairs.
The show, in particular, includes a grossly hilarious scene of a furious Mary gulping down paint thinner, throwing it up and ingesting it again.
The character is “really a play about me and my insecurities and my dreams all dialed up to a million,” Escola noted.
The “Search Party” alum revealed they’ve also battled “lots of suicidal thoughts.”
“And then one day a friend sent me a funny jumpsuit and I put it on, and I started to have the same exact thoughts but as this character and that really made me laugh,” they told The Post.
“Not like it made light of my feelings, just like I was confronting them from a different angle and then finding the humor by exaggerating them and looking at them in a different way.”
“Oh, Mary!” has been extended through May 5. NY Post critic Johnny Oleksinski gave the off-Broadway show four stars.
“The dizzying giggles aside, Escola has also written a taut and unexpectedly absorbing story with some bonkers twists. In any other play, they’d be too much. In this ridiculous world, they’re just right,” he wrote. “Performers like Escola and frequent collaborator Bridget Everett are keeping that energy alive by a thread.”
A gaggle of celebs have flocked to see it since its February debut, including Blythe Danner, Alan Cumming, Amy Schumer, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Amber Ruffin, Steven Spielberg and Sally Field.
Spielberg directed Field in the 2012 movie “Lincoln” in which she played Mary Todd.
After they saw the dark comedy, they went backstage, where Field told Escola: “You were better than me!”
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741741 or go to 988lifeline.org.
