Mary Todd Lincoln Makes Late Night Debut, Heals Broken Nation

In a nation filled with infighting over our collective identity, where nobody can agree on an interpretation of our history, perhaps what we need is someone who doesn’t care. Cole Escola, writer and star of Oh, Mary!, showed up to Late Night With Seth Meyers on May 7 and provided a guidebook to making their lauded interpretation of Mary Todd Lincoln — do no research, be funny. They showed up bedecked in full costume (“I came from the show, I forgot I had to do this”), got showered with praise by Meyers, seemed both earnestly and ironically excited to be interviewed, and revealed just how little they cared about historical accuracy when writing Oh, Mary. “I did less than no research,” they say. “I actively forgot things that I knew about Mary Todd Lincoln.” Well, Oh, Mary! is hilarious and coming to Broadway, so maybe we should all follow in their footsteps and start showing up in costume to places while having no further information to share. When conversation inevitably veers political, simply take a card out Mary Todd’s playbook: “The south of what?!”