Doug Wright’s Good Night, Oscar, excellently acted, excellently directed by Lisa Peterson and excellently designed by Rachel Hauck, arrives in London, following its Broadway success.
Sean Hayes, whom you may have seen in the popular American TV sit-com series, Will and Grace, is repeating his performance of Oscar Levant, which won him a Tony award.
Oscar Levant (1906-1972), the famed American virtuoso concert pianist and popular celebrity panellist on TV talk shows and game shows, was well-known in the US in the 1950’s and 1960’s for his witty one-liners.
He was prepared to make jokes about religion, politics, sex and mental health when such subjects were taboo on television. Producers were worried about offending viewers and losing ratings.
Levant was also a character actor, and filmgoers may remember him in two MGM musicals, directed by Vincente Millenni: An American in Paris in 1951 opposite Gene Kelly and The Band Wagon in 1955 opposite Fred Astaire.
Levant had serious mental health issues and was unpredictable. “There is a fine line between genius and insanity,” he said. “I have erased that line.”
Good Night, Oscar is a fictionalised account of a true event which happened in 1958 when he got four hours leave from the psychiatric hospital, he had been committed to by his wife, to appear on Jimmy Paar’s Tonight, a late-night TV chat show. Doug Wright’s play shows him high on drugs and in meltdown.
Levant was the premier interpreter of George Gershwin’s music and the play’s arresting climax has Sean Hayes at the Steinway piano giving a neurotic and dazzling rendition of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, a virtuoso performance.
Good Night, Oscar lasts I hour and 40 minutes and is performed without interval.
To learn more about Robert Tanitch and his reviews, click here to go to his website. 
