'Oh, Mary!' star Betty Gilpin takes comedy very seriously

The three-time Emmy-nominated GLOW actress is making her Broadway debut in Cole Escola's hit absurdist historical play about Mary Todd Lincoln.

When asked to describe the experience of preparing to lead a comedy on Broadway — in her Broadway debut, no less — Betty Gilpin replied, "I have no idea. I've only done unsuccessful dramas off Broadway."

It reads like a wry quip, but Gilpin said it with a thoughtfulness that hints at her commitment to the task before her. From January 21 to March 16, Gilpin is stepping into the title role of Oh, Mary!, originated to rapturous acclaim by the show's playwright, Cole Escola, off and then on Broadway in 2024. The Mary in question is former first lady Mary Todd Lincoln, reimagined here as a restless, lusty, hard-drinking handful who wants to defy her uncaring husband and become a cabaret star.

Gilpin is no stranger to characters whose ambitions all but explode from within them, having earned three Emmy Award nominations for playing fierce soap opera-star-turned-wrestler-turned-TV producer Debbie "Liberty Belle" Eagan on the Netflix series GLOW. Unlike Debbie, however, Mary is meant to be, above all else, dementedly and hyperbolically silly in her exploits, even as the writing reveals bits of clever brilliance.

"I have, my whole career, been trying to not play to mezzanines and [...] to ground performances, to make them seem real and not like Bette Davis inside a Tilt-A-Whirl," Eagan said. "At last, I can truly be myself."

A similar abandon spelled Escola's success both in writing and performing Oh, Mary!: They've openly shared that the play is a result of a funny idea, a desire to caricature themselves by way of Mary, and little historical fact-checking thereafter. Audiences have yet to see how Gilpin will put her own spin on the character, but the actress remembers being wowed when she first saw Escola perform it during Oh, Mary!'s world-premiere Off-Broadway run at the Lucille Lortel Theatre.

"I was in the process of looking for schools for my daughter, Mary, and in that point of parenthood where I was panicked about what kind of kid or person she would become and wanting to help her get there," Gilpin remembered.

"Even though [the show is] so ridiculous and stupid and joyful, about 10 minutes in, you slowly realize we're watching somebody do something very rare, which is reach up their soul's ass and pull out what is hidden there and extract it for us to see in the most profound way. And I thought, as a parent, that's all you can hope for your kid, that they know and like themselves enough to do that, whatever that might look like for my daughter."

And just as you think she's going totally sentimental, Gilpin pauses and deadpans: "But it has to be stardom, or she's a failure."

Sounds like something Mary Todd would say.

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Maggie Zampino contributed reporting to this story.

Photo credit: Betty Gilpin. (Photo by Emily Soto)