Oh Mary! Review – A History of the United States smuttyly reviewed as an American Pie comedy | stage

Heyh my country! Mary Todd Lincoln is a drunk cabaret star! Her husband, Abraham, the sixteenth president of the United States, is gay! And her acting teacher — who’s also Abraham’s ex — is a tight-fitting hunk who might have wandered off the set of a 70s porn movie! They are all cursing, singing and engaging in acts of sexual desperation!

Oh, why, when Cole Escola’s play comes wreathed from Broadway on the occasion of its dispatch of the first couple of the nineteenth century, does this critic sit with a frozen face throughout this unfortunate play? Described as a raucous black comedy about Marie’s life and the times leading up to Ibrahim’s assassination, the original production starred Escola in the role of Marie.. This transfer Mason Alexander Park features as the stubborn Leaf, with Giles Terrera as her Civil War husband.

Escola’s show left the American public in disarray over the chaos at camp but contained the kind of low-hanging fruit that Kenny Everett’s team might have turned down. You can actually see the next jokes around the corner before the joke lines drop. Camp comedy has less subversion, and more American Pie levels of puerile humor. How very funny would it be to see Mary lift up her circle skirt to reveal plaid pants? Or watch her throw up in a bucket and drink her own vomit?

Directed by Sam Pinkleton, this farce is a farce on its broadest scale (the set, designed by the collective Points, has two doors that crash into this house). It’s big, loud, and visible to the audience. The show points out that the retrograde and cartoonish stereotypes are intentional but the show still doesn’t amount to anything more than that. You wonder what the goal is beyond the grave.

Oh, Mary, maybe there’s no point I Do I disagree?! Because the room the night I attended was filled with panto spirit, even if it felt cheated of the story, character, wit or wonder. The production, a hit at the Tony Awards, features undeniable musical talent in Park (see Jamie Lloyd’s The Tempest and Much Ado About Nothing), but they’re wasted on slapstick here with a medley at the end that never gets dramatic enough to let their glorious voice shine.

And how important would any of it be if the writer, by his own admission, had done “no research” into the life story of Mary Todd Lincoln? Satire and black comedy are designed to accommodate social observation and biting criticism, but there’s none of that here. You learn almost nothing about how Mary was hindered or shaped by history in this apparently “revised” version. Instead, you get the drama of the men around her, from Abraham’s hidden homosexuality to his former lover (Dino Fetcher) and the present-day (Oliver Stokely). Mary is simply disgusting and every other character laughs at her behind her back.

It’s such a frenetic sophomoric comedy that it becomes exhausting to watch, even at 90 minutes. Not much, Mary! Goodbye, Felicia!