“Oh, Mary!”
This is a very funny play.
Of all the plays I saw in London during a recent visit, this is the one that made me laugh the most.
I saw the play with Jinkx Monsoon playing Mary Todd Lincoln, and I thought it was just plain hilarious.
The play will be performed in various American cities over the next few months. A version is on stage currently in New York City, and a traveling version will be staged in various other U.S. cities, including Hartford, Las Vegas, Washington, Detroit, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Paul, Charlotte, and Tampa.
If “Oh, Mary!” comes to a city near you, you should go see it!
Part of the fun with this play is seeing how the plot develops. I don’t want to spoil anything, so I will keep this post focused and short.
Get Matthew Davis’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
Here’s what I can tell you.
“Oh, Mary!” is hilarious.
“Oh, Mary!” moves very quickly. It is tightly written and briskly paced. The run time is just a little more than 90 minutes, with no intermission.
“Oh, Mary!” is very campy. The first lady feels cooped up and unappreciated in the Lincoln White House. She longs to be a cabaret singer — and she likes a strong drink. The whole spirit of the play is very campy and gay and over-the-top. I myself am a hopelessly straight guy, and definitely not someone who automatically runs out to see everything that has a campy and gay and over-the-top vibe. (Actually it’s rather the opposite.) But let me tell you: that particular vibe works in this case.
“Oh, Mary!” has an interesting relationship with American history. The view of Abe Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth instantiated in the play is definitely not the one you get in a high school history textbook. “Oh, Mary!” is a kind of alt-history or hypothetical history. It’s funny as hell, though.
“Oh, Mary!” is irreverent. For me this is not a problem. I like to learn about historical figures and then have a good laugh about them. For some other people this could be an issue, though. If you like your Abe Lincoln plain and factual, and you expect eminent presidents to be given patriotic and reverential treatment, this is probably not the play for you. The Abe Lincoln in “Oh, Mary” is not the Mount Rushmore Lincoln.
So this is not a play for people who dislike irreverence. Also I don’t think it is a play that is suitable for people under the age of eighteen.
But, if you’re 18+, at least a little irreverent, and you like a good laugh, by all means, order a ticket!
