The Lincoln White House is anything but a drag in ‘Oh, Mary!’
There’s something about Mary! Alaska Thunderfuck is a first lady with cabaret dreams in the Oh, Mary! First National Tour playing at the Curran Theatre through Nov. 1. Photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade.
How did Oh, Mary!, a bumptious, raunchy, altogether campy little off-Broadway comedy, become a bona fide international sensation? Because audiences are desperate for a rollicking good time, and this smartly silly delectation fits the bill perfectly, from Mary’s bouncing bratty curls to the swoosh of her formidable hoop skirt.
Playwright Cole Escola has proudly worked the fringes of show business for years with a sense of humor that is wholly their own. Escola occasionally teased the mainstream with irresistibly odd performances on shows like “At Home with Amy Sedaris” and “Difficult People,” but things really got interesting in their quirky independent fare like “Our Home Out West” (watch on YouTube, you’re welcome) or “Pee Pee Manor” (watch here). Escola is a beloved wacko, and now with Oh, Mary!, the Cole sensibility is conquering the world.
The First National Tour of the Broadway production, which originally starred Escola in the title role (and won them a Tony Award), has hit the road and is now at the Curran Theatre for an all-too-brief, mostly sold-out run (with the promise of another tour stop coming in 2028).
Wesley Taylor aims to teach Mary a thing or two about acting. Photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade
The diminutive Escola’s role as Mary Todd Lincoln, a revisionist take on the wife of our 16th president, is now played by the towering Alaska Thunderfuck, best known as the Season 2 winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars.” It’s a role built for a dynamic personality and lots of broad (in every sense) slapstick humor, dirty jokes, a soupçon of pathos and even a little song and dance. Men have played it (Bowen Yang is the current Broadway star) and women have played it (oh, to have seen Maya Rudolph!) and drag stars have made it their own (Jinkx Monsoon was born for this).
Ms. Thunderfuck, whose considerable height very nearly requires her to duck as she storms onto the White House set, is a joy as the alcoholic Mary, a thwarted cabaret star stuck in the role of First Lady.
Her husband Abraham (John-Andrew Morrison) always seems to be praying for something – either for the Civil War to end or for his demanding wife to find something to occupy the miserable hours of her miserable days. He takes decisive action in the war at home by hiring an acting tutor (Wesley Taylor) to stoke his wife’s dreams of returning to the stage, where, she claims, she was once a star. And it very nearly works.
Wartime on the home front: John-Andrew Morrison is Mary’s frustrated husband and Alaska Thunderfuck is a petulant Mary. Behind them, Mother sees all. Photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade
At only 80 minutes, Oh, Mary! is a modern farce trussed up in 19th-century garments. Director Sam Pinkleton ratchets up the speed such that Mary’s hoops hardly ever stop spinning. The small cast, which also includes Pooya Mohseni as Mary’s chaperone and Michael Lepore as the President’s assistant, is incredibly game and plays the whole thing like a madcap sketch from “The Carol Burnett Show” twisted up with Oscar Wilde and echoes of every great drag/camp extravaganza from the last century.
There’s great pleasure to be had in the comedy, of course, but there’s also something subversively satisfying about revising American history so that those usually ignored – the women, the gays – are the ones with all the power…star power, to be more specific.
You’ve got to love a touring Broadway show that proudly features a leading lady whose name can’t be printed or spoken in most traditional news outlets. But that’s fully in the Oh, Mary! spirit. Fuck it all and laugh, laugh, laugh. Also, it helps to kick things off with a killer pre-show playlist that features the likes of Patti LuPone, Barbra Streisand, Ethel Merman and Grace Jones, played so loudly that you have no choice but to love it.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Cole Escola’s Oh, Mary! continues through Nov. 1 at the Curran Theatre, 445 Geary St., San Francisco. Running time: 80 minutes, no intermission. Tickets are $152.10-$300.69 (subject to change). Click here for tickets or call 888-811-5040.
