Oh, Mary! star Dino Fetscher on queer joy, disability and a 'world on fire'

What promises “unrequited yearning, alcoholism, and suppressed desires”?

For some readers, an average January evening. But this is also the guarantee of Oh, Mary! – an (a)historical farce currently running in the West End.

Written with “zero research” by American playwright Cole Escola, the UK transfer of this Broadway smash reimagines the life and dreams of Abraham Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd Lincoln.

This First Lady is a drunken former cabaret performer desperate for the spotlight, while her husband Abraham is gay and serially unfaithful.

One of Abe’s affairs is with Mary’s acting tutor, played by Welsh actor Dino Fetscher. As Oh Mary! continues its London run, we caught up with Fetscher to talk queer joy, disability activism, and ask him some Big Questions.

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BIG ISSUE: What’s the elevator pitch for Oh Mary?

Dino Fetscher: It is a rambunctious, ridiculous, audacious, very clever comedy about the life of Mary Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln’s wife in the events running up to Abraham’s assassination. It is entirely historically inaccurate.

We’re going into LGBTQ+ History Month. The play’s not really about ‘queer history’ per se, but there are many queer characters (including Abraham Lincoln)…

Mason Alexander Park, who plays Mary, is trans, Kate O’Donnell, who plays Mary’s chaperone, is trans. I’m gay. Giles is queer. It’s a very queer cast on the stage. There is such a beautiful spectrum of queerness on the stage and behind the scenes of the play.

Its sheer success – the magnitude of the play – is in itself a huge protest. because the play isn’t necessarily about queer history at all. The visibility of all these queer people on the stage doing something that’s so huge, that is to me, really profound and really powerful, and shows the power of who we are and what we can do.

It’s a pretty regressive political environment, in particular for trans people. Do you think that visibility on stage and humour can help fight back against that?

With what’s happening in the regression of trans rights and the attack on trans people, the battleground seems to be a lot on social media. And we know the tactic of fascism is to kind of bombard us, to bamboozle us, to make us feel so overwhelmed that we’re apathetic and we don’t have the energy. So, protecting your personal joy and protecting that spark within you, for me, is a really strong form of protest.

Now for some Big Questions. What was your biggest dream growing up?

My biggest dream growing up was to be an actor. I still get it now, I get this feeling on set, I get it backstage. I get it every day where I just go, ‘Fuck, this is so cool’. I can feel that child within me going, ‘this is so cool’.

Who was your biggest influence growing up?

My mum. My parents divorced when I was very young, and my mum – she’s disabled – she raised me and my brother pretty much by herself. Dad had us on weekends.

She’s very headstrong. She can’t walk without the aid of crutches. She’s very slow, but she goes travelling by herself to quite remote places. She’s told ‘You can’t go on this excursion’. She says, ‘yes, I can’. She just did a cruise to the Arctic, because she’s always wanted to. They told us she couldn’t do it. She said, ‘yes, I can’. And that’s a big part of how I see the world. It could have been very easy for her to be someone completely different and allow her disability to limit her. But she has never been limited.

Big Issue does a lot of coverage of disability activism and how people fight back against benefit cuts and the barriers society imposes on disabled people. Is this a subject close to your heart – what happens when society deems certain people unable to do certain things?

I think it’s abhorrent, and I think people are so limited, and they clearly haven’t experienced or they don’t know someone with a disability when they have those beliefs, because disabled people are, I think, superhuman, and I don’t mean that in any kind of a patronising way. They get these messages everywhere – ‘no, this isn’t for you’.

There isn’t enough disability visibility on screen. And on a governmental level… [the treatment given to disabled people] is really disgusting.

We need to embolden people with disabilities and give them opportunities because they are just as able as everybody else. They just have some slightly different needs.

What is the first political issue you remember knowing about?

I guess it was probably with George Bush and the Iraq War. I remember 9/11. I was like, 12 or something. And I’d come home from school and it was on the TV. And then, thereafter, I remember all the talk of weapons of mass destruction. And then as things progressed and I learned more, I think that was the first kind of distrust I started to have in government. I remember being quite disappointed with our Labour government, and with Tony Blair for joining in when there didn’t seem to be any viable evidence.

What’s your big issue?

Politically, my biggest issue is the world being on fire. Things are so clearly wrong with what’s happening in the States, what’s happened with Renee Nicole Good [the woman killed by ICE]. It’s like, I’m living in 1984 and watching our government be so gentle and on eggshells and saying, ‘Well, you know’… I think now is the time for governments to be strong and bold and say what we believe in.

What’s your big idea to save the world?

I’m no politician, but I inherently feel that the idea of people being able to amass hundreds of billions of pounds is unnecessary and hugely damaging to the entire planet. Fine, be rich. People should be allowed to earn up to £999 million, and then no more.

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more. 

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