“Oh!” Tituss Burgess said, the curls of his Mary Todd Lincoln wig bobbing as he spoke. “I need kneepads.”
Fully in costume, wearing the wig and a bell-shaped black dress, Burgess was about to rehearse Cole Escola’s hit comedy “Oh, Mary!” onstage at the Lyceum Theater on Broadway, just days before stepping into the starring role on Tuesday.
And, yes, he really did need those kneepads. When Escola played Mary Todd, they channeled their sprung-coil energy into a performance of relentless hilarity and chaos. Burgess’s take on the role is no less physical; if anything, he is upping the ante with the cartoonish expressions and belted high notes fans know from his earlier Broadway appearances and shows like “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.”
Burgess’s turn in the play, a demented fantasia of Mary Todd Lincoln as a frustrated and thwarted “rather well-known niche cabaret legend,” will run through April 6. After that, Escola will return to the part.
When they do, it will be with a fantasy having come true. Last May, Escola was a guest on Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers’s podcast “Las Culturistas,” and said that they “would love for someone else to play Mary Todd” before adding, “My dream is Tituss Burgess.”
Yang and Rogers let out an exclamation just short of a gay gasp, and Rogers said, “That would be fab.” Escola joked that they were worried Burgess would be “too good,” but also couldn’t help but imagine him in the show’s famous curly wig.
Sam Pinkleton, the play’s director, said that watching Burgess in the role “has opened up a joyous new dimension in a thing I thought I knew. He’s made a gusty, hilarious, surprising Mary that is somehow both utterly new and deeply rooted in the DNA Cole created for Mary.”
In an interview last week, Burgess shared what happened when he heard the “Las Culturistas” episode, and how he has prepared for his Broadway return. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.
What was your response to Cole saying they wanted you to play Mary Todd?
I was like, absolutely not. I’d seen the show, and I couldn’t divorce Cole’s performance from the character. What they are able to accomplish — it was such meteoric energy. The offer hadn’t even come in yet, but I told my team no. And then we got the call in December asking me to do it.
So when you agreed to do this, you knew how athletic it would be.
I wasn’t prepared for that part. They make it look so easy. But when I said yes, I said, “I need that script right away.” Because while the show is only 90 minutes, it’s a herculean undertaking. So I convinced myself that I needed to be off-book at least before rehearsal started. I started teaching myself the role and teaching myself the blocking so that rehearsal could actually just be rehearsal. Perhaps I should have spent more time at the gym.
How many calories do you think you burn in this performance?
I would say at least 600 or 700. By the end, it’s like having to run a marathon. I get home and I am starving. The trick is, behind the scenes, you have to stay as hydrated as possible. But I only have one opportunity for a bathroom break. So it’s, like, trying to not consume too much water because that is a terrible predicament to be in — having to find a moment to use the restroom.
Even though you’re running all over the stage, there is so much specificity to it. And on top of learning that, you’re joining a well-oiled cast.
Theater is always teched within an inch of its life; it’s such a puzzle, one tiny thing can throw off an entire moment. What Mary Todd has to do is so physical, but within finely implemented parameters. To find something inside it that is organic is a whole other feat. It’s a dance. You work together with a creative team and try to build something new inside something that already exists, and that’s hard.
Now that you’ve proverbially walked a mile in Cole’s wig, what do you think about what they’ve created with this show?
They say write what you know, and man did they ever. I just marvel at what they were able to accomplish, not just playing to their strengths, but having the opportunity to show the full breadth of what they’re capable of.
And yet it’s so elastic. Mary Todd has been played by Cole, Betty Gilpin and now you. The lines are the same, the delivery is completely different, and it remains funny.
It’s a really good script. I honestly think it’s one of the funniest plays of my generation. It’s so witty and impossibly clever, and as you said, depending on who’s in it, it just takes on an entirely new life. Cole deserves the Tony — deserves best play, deserves best actor at the very least — and I don’t say that lightly. It’s tricky to make this performance look so seamless and so effortless. People undervalue that sometimes, but it takes a great deal of control.
How much were you encouraged to add Tituss-isms and make the role your own?
We talked about this at length, because I was getting stuck in the thought of: “You hired me. You’re using my body as the vessel for Mary Todd.” So I didn’t understand how she could go through the whole play and not have a real facility for performance. But we also went back with just how much of me I would use, because I didn’t want that to be the reason I am doing the part. I’m equally good with dialogue as I am with music, and I was excited for the chance to show that.
You could hear, over time, how hard this show was on Cole’s voice. Mary Todd Lincoln is up there with Elphaba. You’ve had big sings before, like in “The Little Mermaid,” but how are you caring for your voice now?
This weekend I will be with my vocal coach, for sure. I don’t want to say that I’m nervous about it, but I’ve noticed a different type of fatigue than I’ve experienced before. Cole has a lighter voice than I do; mine has a great deal of heft to it. So for me, this is taxing. I’m actually kind of relieved that it’s only for three weeks. I think that’s all the stamina I have.
