Theatre in Review: Oh, Mary! (Lucille Lortel Theatre) If you're looking for an evening of riotous running around, you can't do better than Oh, Mary!, a bawdy, brazenly queer rewrite of American history that turns the Lincoln-era White House into a hotbed of forbidden passions. Playwright/star Cole Escola reinvents the wife of our sixteenth president -- previously portrayed by such august names as Ruth Gordon, Julie Harris, Mary Tyler Moore, and Sally Field -- as a kind of Real Housewife of Washington, DC, Civil War Edition. A self-described "rather well-known niche cabaret legend" with a bloodhound's nose for stray whiskey bottles, Mary is desperate to return to her former (and largely imaginary) glory as a nightclub canary. Indeed, her self-absorption knows no bounds, especially when her fed-up husband gives her plans the presidential veto, insisting there can be no frivolous activities while the nation is at war with the South. "The South of what?" wonders Mary, genuinely puzzled. Scrambling across the stage in a flapping hoop skirt; tossing her curls in a transparently false attempt at coquettishness; or assuming a Wednesday Addams scowl capable of turning men to stone, this is the First Lady as diva in distress, a sharp-elbowed boozehound hilariously oblivious to anyone else's concerns. Paralyzed with boredom, she sighs, "Nothing ever happens around here." An appalled friend replies, "Our country is at war! Thousands are being ravaged by typhoid. Your own son perished just last year." "It's no use trying to make me laugh, Louise," she says, patronizingly. Escola, a comic demon with a heartlessly amusing delivery, has a field day as the ultimate frustrated actress, whether getting a little too cozy with her handsome young acting teacher or auditioning for a role in Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre -- you read that right -- by improvising the role of Juliet's nurse, wielding a cockney accent that sounds like Angela Lansbury on a bender. Then there's Mary's explanation of the acting technique of subtext, which, she says, is best understood by the inbred. Safe to say, there's no subtext here; Escola bags laugh after laugh like a big game hunter on safari. The director, Sam Pinkleton, has found some extremely nimble playmates for his star. Conrad Ricamora is an amusingly apoplectic President Lincoln, fed up with Mary's self-aggrandizing ways and given to casting longing looks at a military aide (a perfectly deadpan Tony Macht), who he hopes will help him "release everything I've got pent up." (He gets his wish, with Macht on his knees under the Presidential desk.) Bianca Leigh, simpering expertly, is Mary's companion, a most proper lady who does unmentionable things with ice cream cones. James Scully is Mary's strapping young acting tutor, who, as it happens, is involved with the Lincoln family in more way than one. Thanks to his and Mary's various schemes, that awful night at Ford's Theatre is reimagined as a farcical crime passionnel. Pinkleton sends the company galloping confidently through these vaudevillian proceedings, executing their gags with Swiss-watch timing. The scenic collective dots provides no fewer than four sets, including an Oval Office fitted out with two sturdy sets of doors for frantic entrances and exits, a seedy tavern ideal suitable for skullduggery, the crowded Presidential Box at Ford's, and a glitzy stage for Mary's big comeback. Holly Pierson's costumes are sumptuous period creations topped off by Leah J. Loukas' wig designs. Cha See's lighting is, alternately bright, sinister, and packed with intentionally tacky pizzazz. Daniel Kluger provides original piano underscoring right out of a silent cinema; he and co-sound designer Drew Levy also provide the kickiest pre-show playlist in town, featuring selections from Cass Elliot, Barbra Streisand, and Liza Minnelli. As a capper, Mary brings down the house with a medley that combines "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain" and "I'm a Little Teapot" with "Copacabana," "The Lady is a Tramp," and "American Pie." You can't keep a bad First Lady down, I guess. Every generation seems to produce at least one such camp specialist: Escola's approach strikes me as being closer to Charles Ludlam's raucous, destabilizing satire than to Charles Busch's sly, perfectly calibrated film parodies, but you can put the young talent's name next to theirs and it looks just fine. --David Barbour 
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