It’s 28 degrees outside in mid-January, and Cole Escola is leading me around Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery in search of the gravestone of an actress-producer who died in 1873. “My lips are gone,” Escola tells me as they clutch their phone with gloveless hands. We’re spinning around, attempting and failing to follow directions from a combination of Google Maps, Apple Maps, and findagrave.com. They assume the voice of a prototypical audiobook narrator: “Two faggots walk into a cemetery …”
We’re looking for the grave of Laura Keene, who was performing in Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., when Abraham Lincoln was shot in 1865. Escola chose to bring me to Keene’s grave in honor of their debut play, Oh, Mary!, which they wrote and star in as Mary Todd Lincoln in the days before her husband’s assassination. Keene told people she had rushed into Lincoln’s box with a glass of water and cradled the wounded president’s head in her arms. Some scholars have since theorized that she lied about this melodramatic moment, which would make her a spiritual predecessor of Oh, Mary! One of the show’s central tenets is that the truth matters less than a worthwhile fabrication.
The germ of Oh, Mary! began with an email Escola sent themselves in 2009 asking what it would be like "if Abe's assassination wasn't such a bad thing for Mary" From there, they did little to no research.
As the play tells it, Mary is a former cabaret star longing to get back to her previous work rather than remain in the gilded cage of the White House. (She drinks paint thinner to cope with this, is forced by her husband to vomit it up, then drinks the vomit.) Escola's Mary is conniving, mean, and loud.
Denne historien er fra February 12-25, 2024-utgaven av New York magazine.
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Denne historien er fra February 12-25, 2024-utgaven av New York magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Lonely Islands The epic melancholy of Caspar David Friedrich.
YOU KNOW THE WORK of Caspar David Friedrich even if you don't think you do.
As Seen at Sundance
The talk of the ski town this year was chilly.
RESTAURANT REVIEW - It Only Looks Humble
Zimmi's is like an Old Country inn where the details are just right.
THE LAST TABOO
14 ADULTS ON COMING TO TERMS WITH, LYING ABOUT, DEPENDING ON. AND SPENDING THEIR PARENTS' MONEY.
Global Tongue A class in Iran probes English's transformative and oppressive powers.
SOMETIMES I THINK you can only speak one language,\" says a character in Sanaz Toossi's English.
Bold Lines on the Block In Bed-Stuy, a deconstructivist tries his hand at affordable housing.
WALK DOWN AN ordinary, blah-colored stretch of Marcus Garvey Boulevard in Bedford-Stuyvesant, past the dispiriting bulk of Woodhull Hospital and the brown-brick boxes of the Sumner Houses, and you'll come upon an incongruous apparition, a giant sugar cube that's been carved, beveled, and knocked askew.
The Reluctant Romantic
An afternoon of banter and bottled water with Leo Woodall, Hollywood's favorite new heartthrob.
53 MINUTES WITH ...Spencer Pratt
The former reality-TV star lost his home in the fires and ascended to a new level of fame.
Brushing Up an East Williamsburg Railroad
Artist Scott Csoke took a can of pink paint to an otherwise ho-hum rental.
BIG FOOD GETS JACKED
HOW PROTEIN MANIA TOOK OVER THE AMERICAN GROCERY STORE.
