The skill required to craft and perform truly great comedy is often underrated, so its refreshing to see the slew of much-deserved plaudits for Cole Escola’s Oh, Mary! that currently adorn the marquee of Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre. Included among the attention-grabbing endorsements is the show’s own mock-boastful tagline—which channels the titular character’s tendency for self-aggrandizement—”The Greatest Play of the Generation!” It is certainly one of the most enjoyable nights I’ve ever had at the theatre, brilliantly paced, with a relentless onslaught of joke after joke. I laughed so much I cried. I might have even peed a little.
The show’s engagement on 45th Street, extended through January 4th, 2026, follows a talk-of-the-town, sold-out Off-Broadway run at the Lucille Lortel Theatre earlier this year which—among many other accolades—saw Oh, Mary! honoured in the Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics’ Dorian Theater Awards as both Outstanding Production and Outstanding LGBTQ Production, while Escola was named LGBTQ Theater Artist of the Season.
The laughs begin as soon as you step inside the Lyceum, with its walls—including those in the bathrooms—plastered in black and white photographs of imagined previous productions that Escola featured in and their bitter anecdotes about what went wrong. And the fun never stops.
With the complete five-member Off-Broadway ensemble reprising their roles, writer-star Cole Escola makes their unforgettable Broadway debut as Mary Todd Lincoln in an uproarious tour-de-force central performance that casts the nineteenth century First Lady as a bored, ignorant, spiteful woman with a drinking problem, the demeanour of a petulant teenager and something of the mournful look of Wednesday Addams about her (costumes by Holly Pierson, wigs by Leah J. Loukas). She’s a terrible mother who makes a quip when the recent death of one of her children is mentioned and claims that she “never goes near” the surviving ones.
Most of her frustration comes from feeling trapped inside the White House and her husband Abraham’s (Conrad Ricamora) refusal to let her return to her days of being “a rather well-known niche cabaret legend” performing the “madcap medleys” that she was doing when they first met. As the Civil War rages on, Abe argues that it would not improve his unpopularity in the country, particularly in the South, for his wife to be doing something so frivolous. “South of what?” is Mary’s bewildered response.
Lincoln is at the end of his tether with his wife’s alcoholism and the public embarrassment that her drinking results in, making dealing with the Civil War “a breath of fresh air” compared to his battle at home. Beseeching God to help him win the war and keep his wife in line, Abe promises that in return he’ll suppress his homosexual urges. But when he’s alone in his office with his dashingly handsome young assistant Simon (Tony Macht), the President struggles to stifle his attraction to him, along with his kinky penchant for role play.
Ricamora brings a glorious intensity to the under pressure President, desperate to “let off some steam” with Simon. It is a delight to watch as the character’s frustration with his situation builds, brilliantly calibrated by Ricamora. While Macht brings an appealing matter-of-factness along with an alert, eager-to-please energy to the adorable Simon, really selling the character’s apparent naïveté in response to his boss’ innuendos. It is a dynamic rich with humour, not because Lincoln is a closeted gay man, but because of the way he attempts to fight his desires, as his vividly described sexual fantasies persist. In the hands of a queer writer in Escola and a queer performer in Ricamora, there is an authenticity and nuance to the way that this narrative strand boldly plays out that makes it all the more amusing.
Until now, Abe has unsuccessfully attempted to distract his wife—and keep her away from the whiskey, paint thinner, or anything else that she can lay her hands on to get wasted—by employing a long-suffering chaperone, Louise (Bianca Leigh), to occupy the apathetic Mary with embroidery, painting, and horseback riding. The latter being an activity that Mary is particularly averse to, exclaiming in one of my favourite lines of the play, brilliantly delivered: “I hate those horses. They laugh at me”. Leigh is an absolute scream as Louise, with all the pent-up resentment of a woman restrained by politeness and propriety from being able to stand up to Mary’s appalling treatment of her.
Exploring a new approach, the President arranges for an acting teacher (James Scully) to come to the White House to give Mary lessons with the promise that she can one day take to the stage in the “legitimate theatre”. Her instructor turns out to be as attractive as he is seductive, and as they read scenes from Romeo and Juliet together the chemistry between student and teacher is palpable. Scully is a wonderful straight man to Escola’s Mary, matching the heightened energy of the eccentric world of the play, while also bringing a touching sincerity to the role of bitter unemployed actor watching his brothers have all the acclaim and success.
One genius aspect of Escola’s indelible creation, that emerges through a blend of their terrifically funny writing and exceptional comic performance, is that Mary manages to be both deliciously hateful yet also somehow endearing. Her bad behaviour never turns us off, in fact it makes her all the more enthralling, and is part of what makes Mary such an endlessly entertaining character. Rather like the way that our love for Jennifer Saunders’ Edina Monsoon in Absolutely Fabulous is never diminished by the way she treats her mother or daughter, but her outrageousness makes us cherish her all the more.
No matter how self-centered she is, it is hard to dislike anyone so throughly stupid, and we also sympathise with Mary’s discontentedness at being kept away from the cabaret stage, and being stuck in a bad marriage with a rather cold and uncaring husband. In one atypical speech she reveals her relatable human fear of not being able to cope with the highs and lows of life, choosing to deny herself true bliss rather than run the risk of it ending, finding it more manageable to keep things numb. It is the kind of depth that Escloa’s writing allows us glimpses of in each character that elevates them from being cartoonish.
Every performance is first-rate, and one of the thrills of this production is seeing the dynamism of the cast rallying back and forth with Escola’s hilarious words, charging the stage with energy. That they choose to play the truth of the situation, however absurd, makes it all the funnier. While the traditional, drawing room drama look to design collective dots’ staging, makes the cast’s larger-than-life creations really pop.
Director Sam Pinkleton makes the most of every beat, piling laugh upon laugh, keeping things zinging as the play builds to its magnificent finale. His skills as a choreographer have been put to great use here, with each actor’s movement and physicality forming an integral aspect of their characterization and adding to the comedy. For instance, the way Mary swings her hoop skirt back and forth as she moves about the stage in the opening scene is not only funny and captivating, but also conveys the exasperation that she has with her own life.
The production is a masterclass in stagecraft, from the precise way that the actors interact with the set to their handling of props, bringing more layers to the humour. Mary’s prolonged struggle to find her way down from Abraham’s desk is a particular highlight. Repeated jokes get funnier each time, like Mary looking towards a portrait of George Washington as she invokes her mother. While Escola’s script brilliantly plays with our expectations of the rule of three.
With a relatively short 80-minute runtime, this is nevertheless a deeply satisfying play that delivers far more laughs than most comedies twice its length. Delectably queer and irreverent, and supremely silly—in the tradition of the likes of Monty Python—this isn’t comedy gold, it’s comedy platinum. An electrifying example of live theatre at its finest, Oh, Mary! offers the unique joy of being part of a full-house Broadway audience joined in uproarious laughter. It’s a riot.
By James Kleinmann
Oh, Mary! is playing at Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre until Sunday, January 4th,2026. For more details and to purchase tickets head to OhMaryPlay.com.