Oh Mary
Photo by Emilio Madrid

Friends told me “You’re going to laugh your head off!” so many times about Cole Escola’s historical comedy Oh, Mary! that I thought if it isn’t truly hilarious, my head will instead explode from resentment.

Fortunately, I did get a serious case of the guffaws on catching the show’s recent Broadway transfer, so all’s good. As deftly directed by Sam Pinkleton, the intermissionless farce dares to be insouciant, silly, outrageous, and even insightful. The lines are fine and the line readings are even better.

Escola is a scream as Mary Todd Lincoln, the deranged First Lady who longs to return to the cabaret stage, though hubby (Conrad Ricamora) wants no mention of that, since any connection to cabaret makes him sound like the gay that he is. A handsome acting teacher for Mary (James Scully) complicates things, and so does Mary’s chaperone, Louise (Bianca Leigh)—an invented character who’s prone to odd revelations, as well as walking into other people’s odd revelations. 

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Leigh, a well-known trans actor, appeared in the film Transamerica (2005) and in 2018, she understudied the parts of Waxy Bush and Stella Spokes in the raucous Broadway comedy The Nap, set in the milieu of the snooker game. In Oh, Mary!, she has a hilarious routine involving very private ice cream and another one about a sack of manure, neither of which I’ll detail, to leave some surprises for audiences who’ve yet to have their heads explode. 

I talked to Bianca about her latest acts of fabulous transgression.

Hello, Bianca. I loved seeing you in the show! What do you think will become your most legendary bit from it—the ice cream or the sack?

I love both, but I think the ice cream. People are sending me pictures of ice cream cones and there are a lot of ice cream emojis in Instagram posts that tag me…but I appreciate you mentioning the sack because it’s a killer bit.

As your character indulges in needlepoint, flanked by tasteful shelves of books, the play seems to be establishing the idea of a standard historical drama and then aggressively turning it upside down. Agreed?

Yes. The idea Cole had was Mary Todd Lincoln as a frustrated cabaret star. Everything came out of that. They did absolutely no research.

Gee, you can’t tell!

[Laughs]

How much of the play was worked out in rehearsal?

The script has been pretty consistent. The structure had all been worked out—the plotting and what had to happen. Lines here and there may have changed or a word might be added, but as untraditional as the script is, we treated it as if it were Chekhov or Shakespeare. We had a reverence for the text and didn’t fuck around with it too much, especially when we went to Broadway. We wanted to keep it really tight and Sam [director Pinkleton] was instrumental in that because he didn’t want any air. “Don’t act on the pause, act on the line. Spit it out. No air, no air, no air. And don’t wait for the laugh to subside.” 

Did Cole give you the part?

Yes. We’d never even met. We had a couple of table reads in January 2023 with the producers, Cole, Sam and the casting director. It was something very special right away. I assumed Sam had gotten me the part because I’ve worked with him and his husband many times. And one day in the dressing room, Cole said, “No, it was me.” They said, “I saw you in Transamerica when I was 18 and I’ve had my eye on you ever since.” That was amazing.

Nice. You also play a male bartender. What’s that about?

That scene was always going to be a doubling of the actor. I asked Cole, “Did you cast me for that because I’m trans?” They said, “Absolutely not. That had nothing to do with it.” I’m guessing they wanted as much family as possible—they wanted to be inclusive. Not “Wouldn’t it be hilarious if we got a trans [female] actor and made them play a [male] bartender?”

Speaking of Transamerica, that was when cis actors played trans quite often and won awards for it. Haven’t we evolved a lot since then?

In 2017, I did a play at American Repertory Theater called Trans Scripts, Part 1: The Women and the director was Jo Bonney. The play was six trans female characters and after exhaustive auditions, they cast two amazing gay male actors who approached it with care and respect. Jo said in an interview, “We’re gonna get there–and soon–because the body of trans talent is only going to get wider and deeper from here. So, to cast a cis person won’t be necessary and will be unthinkable.” At one point, it was just Alexandra Billings and myself that I knew about. We were the only two that I knew of that were serious actresses, trained, working, getting what we could in the business that had pretty much shut us out for 30 years. And when you do get something, you’re often treated like an exotic animal act, not like an actor. Like “Bring in the tr*nnie!” But Transamerica was a new level of respect because they wrote that whole party scene because they wanted to include trans actors.

Tell me about the musical version of Tales of the City that you were involved with.

The music was by Jake Shears and the book by Jeff Whitty. We did two workshops [starting in 2010]. I auditioned for Anna Madrigal, but I was cast as Frannie Halcyon, the rich bitch. I loved it. My agent called me and said, “We have bad news. You’re not getting Madrigal. They offered it to Betty Buckley.” I said, “I get to work with Betty Buckley!” And while a cis woman was playing a trans woman, a trans woman [herself] was playing a cis woman. They eventually did a production at ACT. But I wasn’t cast because—get this–I was too young for the role. Then they did a one night concert on Broadway. They cast Justin Vivian Bond as Anna. Vivian was fucking amazing.

You are endlessly fascinating. Tell me about your background.

I grew up in South Jersey in the suburbs. By the time I was a teenager, I was suffocating. I couldn’t wait to get out. “My soul is gonna die!” I started my initial transition right before I graduated from college, where I majored in acting. I was in an awkward stage. I was told, “The business wants nothing to do with transsexuals.” Everyone had to be in the closet. But once in New York, I did stuff with Absolute Theater, Theater for the New City, PS 122, and shows with Taylor Mac. With Transamerica, people came up to me on the set and said, “Oh, my god, you’re the real deal.” Yeah, we weren’t created in a test tube. Some of us are trained actors! 

So you presented yourself ambiguously at first?

When the song “Walk on the Wild Side” says ”shaved her legs and then he was a she,” well…I plucked my eyebrows a little bit and people called me she. I think I looked rough for a few years. My family said, “What are you doing? Are you gonna live under a rock?” I met some good people and some horrible people. I went to Sally’s Hideaway [a drag, trans and gogo boy hangout in Times Square] and was running around that area as this baby queen. Those were still some of the best times I’ve had. But [downtown clubs] Jackie 60, Boy Bar—I missed all that. We were a little separate at that point. You had the downtown performers and then you had the titty queens. I think it was when [drag performer] Codie Ravioli transitioned and then Candis Cayne did too, that you had very successful drag performers who were now trans women.

Well, you’re a bonafide Broadway star and I couldn’t be prouder of you. The next ice cream is on me!

In other queer theater news…

Orville Peck is the gay, South African-born country singer who’s worn mysterious masks while pushing the boundaries of country music with his piercing vocals. And now, Peck’s music (including his covers of Bronski Beat’s “Smalltown Boy” and “Unchained Melody”) is used in Ain’t Done Bad playing at the Signature Center on 42nd Street.

The 75-minute (including intermission) show has creator Jakob Karr (So You Think You Can Dance, season six) as a young guy who abandons his conservative, small-town life for the big city, where he romps around and falls in love—with a male, of course.

Karr and his fellow dancers are all lyrically energetic to watch, amidst a set that alternates between wooden fences and shiny, mirrored surfaces–i.e., the conservative aesthetic versus the hedonistic glitz.

And I must say that, while the music is pre-recorded–unlike Illinoise, the Tony-winning Sufjan Stevens/Justin Peck dance show which features expert live musicians—it’s a heartfelt piece that’s also the most homoerotic happening in town. Your head will explode!

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