Oh, Mary! director on West End transfer, Tony Award glory and working with Cole Escola (EXCLUSIVE)

As a teen, like many a brave, young queer person before him, Sam Pinkleton “fled” Red State life in Virginia for the bright lights of New York City. “It was the same for Cole Escola – they’re also from a small town,” adds Sam of Oregon-born friend and creative partner Cole. “Staying was not an option.”

After moving in similar circles of “Downtown gay weirdos” for years, the pair channelled their grit and determination into Oh, Mary! – a comedy spoofing the final days of US President Abraham Lincoln before his assassination in 1865. An absurd farce focusing on his wife Mary Todd Lincoln, imagined as alcoholic and aspiring cabaret star, it launched off-Broadway earlier this year before turning into a word-of-mouth hit, eventually conquering Broadway itself. This month, it arrives on the West End.

“We have this incredible gift at the centre of Oh, Mary! here which is Mason Alexander Park, who I’ve adored forever,” adds Sam of rising star Mason, known for playing Desire in Netflix’s The Sandman. “As soon as we knew it was going to be Mason, the show here became easy to see and build around that. Spectacular – it’s quite a performance.”

Speaking of the inherent queerness sewn into the fabric of the show, Sam tells Attitude: “It’s made by people who love dumb musicals and singing and dancing and dirty jokes and all of the things that have allowed generations of queer people to literally survive. You can’t take the queerness out of this show. No one was like ‘we’re going to make this with a queer sensibility’. We’re just a bunch of queer people existing, and we made a thing we wanted to make. Funny to us, and hopefully funny to other people. We tried to commit at 10,000% without apology, which is so much of the best art to me.”

Here, Sam discusses his directing style, dealing with queerphobia and his hopes for the future.

Where do you keep your Tony Award?

At the theatre for the Broadway show, in my office, so people can visit it. It’s where I keep all Oh, Mary!–related things. I don’t like to show things in my home! It feels narcissistic!

How did you and Cole celebrate winning Tony Awards?

I don’t think I really did! By the time of the Tony Awards, everyone is so exhausted. I just went to a diner with my husband! And went back to work the next day, which was a relief. As amazing as the Tonys were and as grateful as I am, obviously, it also is a bit of a pageant; quite far removed from the work I actually do, which is deeply unglamourous. 

That evening though, what did it feel like? When I put myself in your shoes, a million Best Actress Oscar speeches run through my head!

It was wild. I describe it like a diving accident – I don’t have many memories of it! I was stone cold sober. It was a surreal experience. ‘Oh. Bryan Cranston and Allison Janney are handing me a trophy.’ Then I went backstage and Jean Smart was eating a granola bar. It’s especially weird for creatives. We’re not used to standing in front of 6,000 people on national television.

Can you describe the impact of winning Tonys on a production?

I’m still learning the answer to that question. I think of my dear friend, the theatre director Lyndsey Turner, who’s based here. She describes herself as a ‘theatre worker’. That’s what I am and want to be. I’m grateful to have won a Tony, but I didn’t get into this to win awards – but yes, of course, objectively, your professional world gets bigger and louder. Not necessarily better! For me, it’s given me an invitation to get really serious about what I actually want to be doing, and what I love, and what nourishes me, and what I can offer, as opposed to ‘what’s the next fanciest thing?’ In my view, I’ve already gone so far beyond anything I ever dreamed of, so I’m not just chasing the next thing. I don’t want to direct movies. I want to continue making weird, gay things with people I love, which is how this started. In a way, the Tony is an opportunity to say ‘no. Actually, I want to do this thing I really believe in. Not this thing that is the next big IP project.’

Oh, Mary! is juggernaut that just keeps going, and I’m sure you’re strapped in for the foreseeable. But do you have any fixed ideas about what you will do when you move onto the next thing? Will you and Cole continue working together?

The thing about Oh, Mary! being so far beyond the life we expected for it is, Cole and I are working together every day. We chat every day; we’re an excellent team, thank god. But we never imagined it would exist without Cole. Or beyond the very short, original run. It’s been amazing to see it go through these different versions, and especially amazing to now see it in the hands of this cast here in London. It’s like Cole and I run this weird theatre company together! It’s joyous. We’ve known each other for over a decade and we’ve always been mutually admiring of each other’s work. We never expected our first collaboration to go the way it did. But I think I speak for them when I say, we would be delighted to keep working together.

How did you first meet?

Cole was always on my radar because we swam in similar circles of Downtown gay weirdos. But I choreographed a musical that Cole was an actor in, about Madonna and Britney Spears living in a tenement house in the 1930s. A very special show called The Material World by the great Dan Fishback – both of us would love to see it [staged] again. We then went in and out of each other’s lives until I got an email that said: ‘Cole Escola wrote a play about Mary Todd Lincoln – would you like to read it?’

Having worked on this for two years, does that mean you have ample opportunity for refinement, or do you find you’re having to stick with prior creative decisions that you’d now make differently?

The joy of getting to come to London now with it is I feel really clear about what it is and what it isn’t. That doesn’t mean it’s a carbon copy. It means I and my collaborators have been able to be really helpful and confident. It’s felt like making a new show here. I feel proud of the choice to cast a company of actors who are all based in London, to start over with people who have never been around it before. I’ve definitely given myself permission to try new things, find new things. I’ve obviously given the actors permission to do that, otherwise what’s the point? And also, they shouldn’t care that it was a hit in America. Just as the audience shouldn’t. It’s more enjoyable and honest if I come into this with fresh eyes. I have a huge amount of trial and error behind me, which allows me to say: ‘Actually, we’ve tried that.’ But by and large, I feel energised siting here because it has felt like starting over. But that’s also terrifying, to be clear. ‘You’ve won a Tony, and now here you are in an unfamiliar room with a group of strangers being like, OK, page one, here we go.’

Do you have people in London you can reach out to for support?!

Oh god, yes. I feel very lucky that this isn’t my first show here. I’ve spent a lot of time here. There are a few directors like Lyndsey Turner, the amazing Tim Jackson, Thomas Kail, the director of Hamilton who have been so generous with me, in terms of what it means to bring something from America to the UK. Directing is a weirdly lonely job. There aren’t a ton of us. So, I find checking in with other directors very helpful. And I have an amazing associate director here. So, I feel extremely supported and welcomed. 

Cole’s profile has really exploded this year. Have you been supporting them on this journey?

Totally. I don’t know what it’s like to be in Cole’s body but having been with them every step of this journey… Oh, Mary! has been a massive part of my life, changed my life, consumed my life. But I don’t have to go out and be on stage every night. I don’t have to go on TV every day. All the things Cole had to do to promote the show, the things coming their way on top of having to play Mary Todd Lincoln eight shows a week?! It was insane. Part of why we’re a great team is, we’re carrying equal parts of this thing, but what we do is very, very different. We’re using our [respective] superpowers. I’m happy mine is ‘door closed’. I don’t have to be the face of it. There’s so much I can do because I don’t have to be the face of it.

What’s your directing style?

I’m in theatre because I love collaboration. If I did not, I would be a painter! My job is to create conditions to be the most themselves and do their best work. And to not waste people’s time, and to not be a dick. Also, we’re talking about plays. I do singing and dancing as my job. It’s a delight. And it should be a delight; I take that seriously. And that doesn’t mean we’re going to faff around. But I do think a big part of my job as a director is to make something that’s going to be fun for people. I’m vigorous about it. I don’t like to waste time, and I am structured in how I work. For my money, I want people at the end of a hard day to have an experience that is joyous. That they couldn’t have on their own. Full stop. I’m never going to direct a play with someone crying over a sink. It’s just not for me. In order to do that effectively, those conditions have to be created in the rehearsal room. I can’t be punishing and strict and expect you to go out and delight 900 people a night. Vibes are really important. I direct, but I also have to be vibes wizard.

Has dealing with a subject people are passionate about – Lincoln – been an experience?

It probably should be! But there was never a moment from the very first impulse of the show to know anything at all about the Lincolns beyond what a seven-year-old might know. We were liberated by the stupidity of that. You can be a Lincoln scholar or be an idiot. Anything in-between is dangerous! I chose idiot. I ordered one book about Mary Todd Lincoln – but it never came! I grew up in the South, near Richmond, Virginia, a very civil war place. There was a reverence around Lincoln. So, I’m definitely aware of the lightning rod that he is in American culture. But I think we’re clear: don’t come here if you expect to learn a single thing about history. You simply won’t!

The show’s been so warmly received – but has there been any queerphobic reaction?

I’m sure. We’re living in a time where there’s a queerphobic reaction to a lampshade. It’s incredible what we can manufacture queerphobic responses to. I will say that when we moved the show to Broadway, I was like: ‘What’s that gonna be like?!’ It was not conceived to go to Broadway; my conception of Broadway was, it doesn’t have room for something like Oh, Mary!. It’s so queerer than the next queerest thing anything Broadway has been remotely OK with! I thought a bunch of queer people would come see it for four weeks and then the tourists would show up and be horrified, storm out, call us all f*gs and then the show would close! Very early on, three or four weeks into the Brodway run, I looked around, and I don’t want to assume, but I was looking at the people in the stalls and was like: ‘There are some right-wing people in this crowd.’ And they were howling.

Of course, it’s a big queer show made by a bunch of queer people. We are very intentional about what we’re putting on stage and who’s doing it. [But] it’s really old-fashioned in its approach to comedy. It’s a big, old play where surprises happen. It feels like, at least in America, The Carol Burnett Show. The form feels safe, even if the content doesn’t. So, I think in a way, on Broadway, it’s managed to be a bit of a Trojan Horse. That delights me. It’s good use of a Broadway theatre. ‘You’re going to come on your trip to New York and you’re going to see a trans woman in the centre of a play. And that trans woman is going to make you laugh and give you the greatest night you could imagine.’ If we’d led with that, you may have been thinking X, Y and Z, but you just sat down and watched a comedy. 

But I’m sure there are haters. I sat next to a lady the other night who was having a miserable time; went out of her way to tell me! But people are going to be cunts no matter what! 

It’s about the cunt quota! It’s less than you expected! And so much of it is about good word of mouth.

Totally. It’s ignited an enthusiasm beyond a queer audience. But if I can make 50 queer people happy and that lady that’s a cunt unhappy, fine!

Has Steven Spielberg, director of 2012 biopic Lincoln, or the film’s stars, Daniel Day-Lewis or Sally Field seen it?

Steven Spielberg, Tony Kushner and Sally Field, all saw it together very early Downtown, a month into the run. That was the first moment where Cole and I were like: What’s going on? It was freaky. They were so amazing about it, so kind. Tony, who wrote the Lincoln screenplay, has seen it, like, five times, and interviewed Cole and I on-stage on Broadway. They’ve become part of the family of the show, which is so unexpected and hilarious! 

Oh, Mary! is playing now at the Trafalgar Theatre.

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