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Oh, Mary! Broadway Reviews

★★★★★ “An instant classic.” – Time Out New York Oh, Mary! is a dark comedy about a miserable, suffocated Mary Todd Lincoln in the weeks ... (more info). See what all the critics had to say and see all the ratings for Oh, Mary! including the New York Times and more...

Theatre: Lyceum Theatre (Broadway), 149 W. 45th St.
CRITICS RATING:
9.35
READERS RATING:
2.50

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Critics' Reviews

10

Review: What Makes ‘Oh, Mary!’ One of the Best Summer Comedies in Years

From: The New York Times | By: Jesse Green | Date: 7/11/2024

They protest too much. “Oh, Mary!” may be silly, campy, even pointless, but “stupid,” I think not. Rather, the play, which opened on Thursday at the Lyceum Theater, is one of the best crafted and most exactingly directed Broadway comedies in years. Which is a surprise on many levels, and on each level a gift.

10

Oh, Mary! Is Excellently Uncivil

From: Vulture | By: Sara Holdren | Date: 7/11/2024

The most controversial cabaret in town might be happening at the August Wilson Theatre, but the best one is at the Lyceum. There, Cole Escola’s riotous, extremely faux-historical farce, Oh, Mary!, has begun its Broadway run, and long may it reign. Oh, Mary! took the West Village deliriously captive in its big gay pirate ship back in the spring, and while the wickedly clever Escola — who made their name first on YouTube playing wonderfully unhinged characters, then as a scene-stealer on shows like Search Party and Difficult People — is on record calling the uptown transfer “a mistake,” they and director Sam Pinkleton have wisely left funny enough alone. Really, far more than enough — Oh, Mary! is hilarious and, underneath the mayhem, both structurally rock solid and sneakily moving. It may be playing the palace now, but it’s confident enough in its own skin to have resisted any sort of unnecessary makeover.

9

‘Oh, Mary!’ Review: Cole Escola’s Ferocious Mrs. Lincoln

From: The Wall Street Journal | By: Charles Isherwood | Date: 7/11/2024

“Oh, Mary!” is directed by Sam Pinkleton at a breakneck speed that both allows room for the best jokes to harvest their share of laughter while never letting even the lesser gags land with a thud. The entire cast excels at physical comedy, particularly Escola, whose Mary, after seducing her acting teacher on top of Abraham’s desk, must find a dignified way to descend from it, with ingeniously amusing results. I have a pretty low threshold for the coarseness of much low comedy, and plenty of the humor in “Oh, Mary!” is so low it qualifies as subterranean. But Escola’s brilliantly loopy writing and knockabout performance—which also recalls the great gifts of Carol Burnett—won me over.

10

OH, MARY!

From: Time Out New York | By: Adam Feldman | Date: 7/11/2024

Cole Escola’s Oh, Mary! is not just funny: It is dizzyingly, breathtakingly funny, the kind of funny that ambushes your body into uncontained laughter. Stage comedies have become an endangered species in recent decades, and when they do pop up they tend to be the kind of funny that evokes smirks, chuckles or wry smiles of recognition. Not so here: I can’t remember the last time I saw a play that made me laugh, helplessly and loudly, as much as Oh, Mary! did—and my reaction was shared by the rest of the audience, which burst into applause at the end of every scene. Fasten your seatbelts: This 80-minute show is a fast and wild joy ride.

9

Oh, Mary! review: Cole Escola's American farce is the funniest play on Broadway

From: Entertainment Weekly | By: Christian Holub | Date: 7/11/2024

Oh, Mary! is laugh-out-loud funny from the first moments; though much of the humor comes from Escola’s unbelievable delivery and the slapstick combination of actors on stage. But what makes Oh, Mary! such a fulfilling theatrical experience is that it also has a real message about the dangers of repression, both societal and personal. Letting people express themselves and live their truth may not solve every political problem, but it can certainly make life way more fun. Escola’s doing that, and the rest of us should too. Grade: A-

9

Oh, Mary! review – Cole Escola’s gloriously deranged historical romp

From: The Guardian | By: Adrian Horton | Date: 7/11/2024

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.

10

‘Oh, Mary!’ Broadway Review: How Was The Play, Mrs. Lincoln? Sensational

From: Deadline | By: Greg Evans | Date: 7/11/2024

There’s funny, there’s very funny, and then there’s Oh, Mary!, Cole Escola’s riotous new comedy that brings more laughs to Broadway than all the Gutenberg!s, Edelmans and Birbiglias combined. You can throw in Shucked for good measure.

10

‘Oh, Mary!’ on Broadway: History Made Brilliantly, Hilariously Silly

From: The Daily Beast | By: Tim Teeman | Date: 7/11/2024

The delights of Oh, Mary! (Lyceum Theater, booking to Sept 15) are many, varied, and all-winning. If, like many, the world and life in general has left you tense, this Broadway show—transferred by way of rave reviews and celebrity visitors from an award-laden sold-out run at the Lucille Lortel Theatre downtown—will liberate waves of plentiful laughter from within. In the best way that only theater can, the hilarity is communally shared by your fellow audience members, who are losing it merrily all around you. For 80 minutes, the Lyceum is a rumbling sea of giggling and guffaws.

10

‘Oh, Mary!’ Broadway Review: A New Star Moves Uptown to Wow the Masses

From: The Wrap | By: Robert Hofler | Date: 7/11/2024

“Oh, Mary!” plays even better on Broadway than it did downtown at the Lucille Lortel Theater earlier this year. Experiencing this comedy with a few hundred more theatergoers takes the laughter from boisterous to atomic and the effect is absolutely radioactive. Plot-wise, it continues to be best to write as little as possible. There are outrageous twists and turns in the story that genuinely shock an audience into delayed convulsions of laughter. Let’s just say that Escola has somehow managed to turn the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln into an inspired, rollicking comedy.

10

‘Oh, Mary!’ review: The funniest show on Broadway

From: The New York Post | By: Johnny Oleksinki | Date: 7/11/2024

On its face, the tumult of the Civil War and a traumatizing assassination do not a recipe for laughter make. And yet the Great White Way has not witnessed a comedy this funny, or a comedic star turn this dazzling, in at least a decade.

In its original extended run at the Lortel Theatre earlier this year, Oh, Mary! drew packed houses that one night included Steven Spielberg, Sally Field and Tony Kushner, respectively the director, co-star and screenwriter of Lincoln. The widely circulated backstage photo of the group with Escola in Mary drag no doubt helped spread the word that this was no ordinary lark. The playwright might describe it as stupid, but any comedy that liberates audiences from the despair of the current political climate with 80 minutes of almost uninterrupted laughter is a work of genius.

10

BROADWAY REVIEW: Mary Todd Lincoln farce ‘Oh, Mary’ is hilarious take on controversial first lady

From: The New York Daily News | By: Chris Jones | Date: 7/11/2024

Second, the director Sam Pinkerton moves the show at such a lightning pace that we’re all on to the next laugh before you start to wonder about the merits of the one before or even dare to question the whole tawdry enterprise. Blackouts come so hard upon the lines of dialogue that the actors have to rush to get their gags out, which makes them all the funnier because it both raises the stakes and keys into one of the key ingredients of great farce: the mutual experience of the chaotic.

10

‘Oh, Mary!’ Is a Splendidly Nasty Farce You Will Not Want to Miss

From: Observer | By: David Cote | Date: 7/11/2024

Escola’s splendidly nasty queer romp has hiked up its petticoats and staggered uptown from a sold-out run at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, goosing a sleepy Broadway summer. I’m happy to report that although director Sam Pinkleton leveled up the production values (particularly in the musical finale), Oh, Mary! remains the same vicious, dirty-minded, bad-taste farce that delighted camp aficionados last winter. In a theater scene squeezed between the Scylla of nonprofit precarity and Charybdis of commercial desperation, Escola and their team offer audacity, flair, and a homing instinct for the audience funny bone.

8

OH, MARY!: LINCOLN, DRINKIN’ AND TODD

From: New York Stage Review | By: Bob Verini | Date: 7/11/2024

The script, and the direction of Sam Pinkleton (erstwhile choreographer of Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812), start things off at too high a level that eventually leads to some lulls. And Mary’s character arc, while necessarily schizophrenic, could be laid out more cleanly. But with this many laughs and surprises at every juncture, who can be bothered to carp? Does the show merit multiple viewings during its limited run? And is there more than enough room and incentive for a sequel? Oh, Mary, don’t ask.

4

OH, MARY!: DON’T ASK FOR SUBTLE COMEDY

From: New York Stage Review | By: Michael Sommers | Date: 7/11/2024

A ribald cartoon more hysterical than historical, Oh, Mary! sheds unexpected light upon the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and represents the latest generation of gender bent comical entertainment known as camp. Elder viewers reared on the comparatively subtle writing and performance style of Charles Busch are likely to find Escola’s slapdash artistry crude, but there’s no denying he snags laughs.

10

Cole Escola’s OH, MARY! On Broadway Is a Stupid Masterpiece — Review

From: Theatrely | By: Nolan Boggess | Date: 7/11/2024

With the world finally catching up with Escola’s work, let’s hope more people travel all over the world to see Mary’s “short legs and long medleys.” Or at least enough to turn a strictly limited run into a Broadway mainstay.

10

'Oh, Mary!' review — Cole Escola's hit comedy gets a bigger stage and bigger laughs

From: New York Theatre Guide | By: Austin Fimmano | Date: 7/11/2024

Together with James Scully as Mary’s handsome drama teacher, Bianca Leigh as Mary’s long-suffering chaperone, and Tony Macht as Abe’s extremely pliant assistant, the entire ensemble elevates very silly jokes into a work of art that keeps you riveted from start to finish. Suffice it to say that when the lights went up after the curtain call, my guest and I agreed we had literally laughed until our faces hurt.


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