'Oh, Mary!' Just as Subversively Hilarious on Tour at SF's Curran as It Was on Broadway

Even though it was written to be a queer, campy, ahistorical comedy vehicle for Cole Escola, Oh, Mary! has, against the odds, become a successfully bawdy romp in the hands of a range of performers, and one that lets all of America in on the joke.

The much anticipated touring production of Oh, Mary! arrived at SF's Curran Theatre this week, its set (primarily the 1860s pre-Oval office of Abraham Lincoln) an exact replica of the one still being seen on Broadway, designed by the dots collective. And the play has traveled well with its new touring cast, which features one performer, John-Andrew Morrison (A Strange Loop), reprising the role of "Mary's Husband" that he played on Broadway last fall opposite both Jane Krakowski and Jinkx Monsoon.

Though she was out sick for the first two previews at the Curran this week and let her understudy go on, Rupaul's Drag Race royalty Alaska Thunderfuck went on as Mary on Thursday night for the official opening of Oh, Mary!'s sold-out, three-week SF run. From here, it's on to Seattle, LA, and Boston — and it remains unclear who will pick up the role after that, given a recent abrupt, health-related shuffle involving Tony winner J. Harrison Ghee, who may still be coming back

Alaska (nee Justin Andrew Honard) is a seasoned performer who has already done the seven- or eight-shows-a-week routine in the Off-Broadway DRAG: The Musical, which she cowrote, and which ran for six months last year. To the role of Mary Todd Lincoln, Alaska brings a keen sense of slapstick and all the necessary hoop-skirt shenanigans, as well as an undeniable command of the stage. She is also very much in her element as Mary Todd the cabaret "star," famed for her "madcap medlies."

While every actor and actress who has taken on the role of Mary to date — a list which includes comedy legends like Krakowski and Maya Rudolph, as well as rising stars Bowen Yang and Meg Stalter — has no doubt brought their spin and unique intonations to the highly ridiculous script, having seen the originator and creator of the role, Cole Escola, on Broadway, I admit to a slight bias. I'm not sure anyone can bring the same intense lunacy and glinting-eyed villainy to the role as Cole.

That is not to say that Alaska doesn't do her level best to bring the lunacy, and most audiences will be none the wiser. Sam Pinkleton's able direction has also kept the show hitting all its beats.

Morrison brings a silly level of gravitas to the role of Lincoln/Mary's Husband, and he and Alaska bounce well off one another. As Mary's Teacher, Wesley Taylor (Only Murders in the Building, Difficult People) is marvelous and funny in all of his seductive actor-y-ness.

As Mary's Chaperone, Iranian American trans actress Pooya Mohseni is a funny foil to Alaska's fiendish Mary, but her accent distracts a bit from her scenes.

All one needs to know going into this show is that it bears almost no relation to actual history, and this caricature of Mary Todd Lincoln is a creation of Escola's, who was inspired by the idea that an alcoholic Mary might have had dreams of cabaret glory, and that maybe her life was better after her husband died.

What's brilliant about Escola's tightly constructed, 75-minute play is that, even with all the raunchy jokes and camp sensibility, it sits just on the edgier fringe of mainstream humor — especially when we live in a time when the mainstream includes things like Rupaul's Drag Race and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. And while it might still make some older, more straight-laced audience members bristle, it has succeeded in drawing people in to its Off-Broadway subversiveness and its goofy re-rendering of a sacred chapter of American history.

Thus, the SF run is totally sold out, though there may still be some not-too-crazy-expensive tickets to be found on the secondary market, or on rush via TodayTix if and when house seats are released.

'Oh, Mary!' runs through November 1 at the Curran Theatre.