The real Mary Todd Lincoln was, by most accounts, erratic, often bedridden by sadness and prone to lavish spending. Not exactly a comic figure, though in the hands of the inimitable Cole Escola, the former first lady is the buzziest, and funniest, theater draw this summer. The comedian’s show Oh, Mary!, which transferred to Broadway after critical raves and a twice-extended Off-Broadway run, takes the public blank slate of Abraham’s hoop-skirted wife as a launchpad for 80 minutes of irreverent, raunchy, gleefully deranged revisionist history.
Escola, a longtime cult fixture of New York’s alt-comedy scene perhaps best known for memorable guest spots on Search Party, Difficult People and The Girls on the Bus, first conceived of this factually askew and gloriously deranged account of Mary’s miserable life in 2009 with an email to themselves that simply wondered: “What if Abe’s assassination wasn’t such a bad thing for Mary?” By their own admission, they did little to no follow-up research. Their Mary Todd is, like her historical counterpart, melodramatic and married to a president named Abraham (Fire Island’s Conrad Ricamora, perfectly pitiable though at times too shrill in an otherwise resplendently loud play). She’s also an incorrigible drunk, a feisty thorn in her husband’s side, a nasty piece of work, a self-proclaimed “rather well-known niche cabaret legend” and a total hoot.
