Weather 
By Bill Hirschman
(Once again, Florida Theater On Stage is reviewing current shows playing this winter on and off-Broadway, many of which will be touring locally or mounted by a local company. Today, Jane Krakowski fills in at Oh, Mary. Still coming up over this month, reviews of Ragtime and Chess; We already have reviewed Little Bear Ridge Road, Beau the Musical and Liberation.)
There can be little question that there is a difference having a CIS actress play the lead that non-binary Cole Escola wrote and played in the delightfully off-beat comedy Oh, Mary.
And admittedly, a twist occurs having veteran star of stage and TV screen Jane Krakowski playing Mary Lincoln in this over-the-top farce whose humor was enhanced by having a gay actor cavorting in the part.
So while the evening has lost that enhancing sexuality angle, this edition is easily one of the most hilarious evening this critic has seen in theater in years.
While the mouth-twisting wryness of the script and the deft direction remain intact, Krakowski’s years of experience as a singer-dancer-comedienne is on display in a master class of the art. Her timing and energy are textbook precise, yet never forced. She plays Mary straight-forwardly with rarely a beat seeing if the joke landed as happens with most TV sitcoms.
The play already running year-and-a-half will likely continue on Broadway into the next decade, but Krakowski is leaving Jan. 4 so act now. The fourth Mary, Jinkx Monsoon, briefly returns again after that and John Cameron Mitchell later this winter.
For those living in a cave the last season, Oh, Mary reimagines Abe’s wife as a world class alcoholic. Abe dealing with the end of the Civil War is more concerned in attracting the under the desk aid of his male aide. To distract his wife’s determination to return to her life as a cabaret singer, Abe hires an unemployed fourth-rate actor to tutor her in dramatic art for some undetermined future.
Ecola’s script specifically instructs the production not to foreshadow the zany turns of the plot, so we’ll respect that. (You likely will figure out the penultimate scene before it happens) But if you haven’t heard about them yet, trust us, they are hysterical, especially the final scene. It’s a rollicking sex-drenched freight train.
Grant that when Escola played the part, the show that gleefully runs over conservative social “standards” had another layer as Ecolo ran amuck in the floor-length billowing funeral hoop dress.
But Krakowski’s nuclear power drives this 80-minute farce like a scenery-chewing faux melodrama. She almost never stops moving, her arms always in motion; she finds a laugh in even the straightest of lines.
None of the award-winning supporting cast from the opening in June 2024 are here. But their replacements are superb from John-Andrew Morrison as the overweight gay black Lincoln to the impossibly handsome Cheyenne Jackson as “Mary’s Teacher.”
Escola made history by winning the Best Leading Actor in a Play Tony the first openly non-binary actor in that category, while Sam Pinkleton won Best Direction of a Play, and the show earned nominations for Best Play and other categories.
Reportedly, it is the first show to earn $1 million a week at the Lyceum Theatre. Given the number of patrons we sat next to, its fans keep coming back over and over.
Oh, Mary is playing at the Lyceum Theatre through at least July 5
