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Oh, Mary!

 
Pete Shaw Review by Pete Shaw 5 Published: 19 Mar 2026 Trafalgar Theatre Show Dates: 3 Dec 2025-25 Apr 2026

History is rarely treated with such gleeful disrespect as in Oh, Mary! at the Trafalgar Theatre, where Cole Escola detonates the Lincoln myth in a blaze of farce, played out on a set that resembles a slightly shabby Crossroads motel, complete with two well-used doors that promise, and deliver, escalating chaos.

Oh, Mary! is not history. It is high camp heresy

Set in the jittery days before Abraham Lincoln’s assassination at Ford’s Theatre, the play imagines a White House in which the Civil War is almost an inconvenience. Abe frets about a nation that loathes him yet it is his wife who proves the more immediate catastrophe.

Escola, who has cheerfully admitted to doing no research, rewrites history with anarchic abandon. This Mary is less grieving widow in waiting than thwarted cabaret star, marooned in a corset and desperate for the spotlight. She drinks anything that might conceivably intoxicate, from whiskey to paint thinner, and if that fails she improvises. Her long-suffering chaperone Louise is the focus of sustained, inventive cruelty, including an arson incident on Christmas Day that Mary defends with breezy logic. “I put it out.” “Not until the New Year,” comes the reply.

In an effort to curb his wife’s theatrical ambitions, Abe hires an acting tutor with no intention of letting her act. The tutor happens to be John Wilkes Booth, all tight britches and smouldering glances. Mary veers from contempt for her teacher to full-blown obsession without troubling herself with the steps in between.

Meanwhile Abe, who you might reasonably expect to steady proceedings, has distractions of his own, not least a lingering interest in the derriere of his seemingly pliable assistant Simon. Simon may look decorative, but proves adept at negotiating the perks of proximity to power.

The humour is gloriously unsubtle. If there is a cheap gag to be had, it is seized and shaken until coins fall out. Physical comedy abounds, whether Mary is shuffling grandly across the Oval Office, attempting to dismount the Walnut Desk in a mountainous crinoline or pausing just long enough before asking, “Why would I throw an entire woman down the stairs?” Beat. “Because it is hilarious.” The script bristles with lines destined for post-show quotation.

Mason Alexander Park pivots sharply from their recent Emcee in Cabaret to deliver a feral, fraying Mary whose every heeled step is a provocation. Giles Terera’s Abe is tightly wound with repression and panic. Dino Fetscher relishes Booth’s theatrical bravado, then neatly punctures it as the bluster gives way to something far more desperate, Kate O’Donnell gives Louise a bruised dignity that almost steadies the madness and Oliver Stockley plays Simon with a knowing lightness that suggests more calculation than innocence.

You need know nothing about Mary Todd Lincoln to relish this. Let’s face it, Escola didn’t. Oh, Mary! is not history. It is high camp heresy, gleefully rummaging through the ruins of American myth and rearranging them for maximum laughter. Just when you think it cannot become more absurd, it does. And then it does again.

Amir Nisi

Pete Shaw

Pete is founder and publisher of Broadway Baby. He has extensive experience of both journalism and the performing arts, having been deputy editor of a national magazine; broadcaster on Capital Radio; producer of shows in London, Edinburgh and Dublin; and the go-to marketing guy for countless theatrical productions.

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The Blurb:

Oh, Mary! is an uproariously dark comedy about a miserable, suffocated Mary Todd Lincoln in the weeks leading up to Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Unrequited yearning, alcoholism, and suppressed desires abound in this 80-minute one-act play that finally examines the forgotten life and dreams of Mrs. Lincoln, through the lens of an idiot (playwright Cole Escola). Declared “one of the best comedies in years” by The New York Times, Oh, Mary! received Tony Awards for Best Leading Actor in a Play (Cole Escola) and Best Direction of a Play (Sam Pinkleton).
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