Goodman Theatre Takes on Unstable Genius

Good Night, Oscar, soon to close at the Goodman, feels like something of another age when theater carried the air of grand.  The set, the style of acting and the way it presented drama all came together to make an experience that melts indelibly into your memory. 

The story of an unorthodox TV personality afflicted with a laundry list of mental health challenges, Good Night, Oscar takes us into the world that Oscar Levant inhabited during the early days of television.  A splendid pianist whose notoriety grew mainly from his provocative wit, Levant was a fascination in the 50s and 60s.

Good Night, Oscar captures a slice of Levant in action. His wife has recently committed him to an insane asylum and, for very pragmatic reasons, subsequently arranged for Levant to appear on the Jack Paar Show.  Like Kanye West, Levant was the guest that was neither predictable or controllable.  In addition to his brilliant mind, each of those traits magnified his appeal.  Always open about his struggles with mental health, he could be counted to reject discretion and indulge in the kind of candor that could singe.

Sean Hayes delivers a stand out performance as Levant.  As conceived by playwright Doug Wright and under the direction of Lisa Peterson, Hayes’s role is the sun Good Night, Oscar revolves around and he fills it with complex bravado and vulnerable intelligence.  That’s a great thing to say about someone who gained fame for a very different kind of role in the hit sitcom, Will and Grace. 

How do you behave when you’re on leave from the psych ward at Mt. Sinai to have a tête-á-tête with one of The Tonight Show’s first hosts?  If you’re Levant, you just be your usual brilliantly self-deprecating and slightly manic self.  Hayes’s interpretation of Levant isn’t exact.  Based on Youtube videos of the entertainer, Levant had a quality, a nonchalance that doesn’t quite make it to the stage in this production.  Hayes does convey Levant’s powerful intellect and his ability to lampoon the petty conceits of prim society.  Impeccably delivered, his one liners always hit with the precision of an advanced rocket.  The show is full of lines that are surely directly attributable to Levant himself and functioned as wildly funny relief valves to a rewardingly serious tale.    

Which leads to another aspect of the play that gave it its classy sheen, the writing.  Both a Pulitzer Prize and Tony award winner, Wright doesn’t claim to be a good playwright.  But he correctly feels he writes plays that honor the skills of actors.  That ability makes Good Night, Oscar roar with spirit by beautifully respecting the humanity of the people filling Levant’s universe that night on the Tonight Show.  His wife Jane, played by Emily Bergl, isn’t portrayed as a martyr.  More pragmatic than resigning, she’s not just a source of strength who bolsters a damaged man. She’s a shrewd realist who makes decisions about what’s best for herself and her children as well as her husband.  Ben Rappaport as Jack Paar admires Levant’s talent and understands gifts like Levant’s can come with costs.  The supporting cast acts as load bearing walls doing the essential work of providing context. Through them we get a better idea of how a person’s constantly shifting mental stability impacts everyone who falls within his sphere.   

This play is a bruising workout for Hayes.  Locked into an intense awareness of self, fighting cravings for drugs, controlling voices rambling through his mind, he’s functioning valiantly in two worlds.  A guardian from Mt. Sinai is there to watch over him during his furlough.  Tramell Tillman plays Alvin Finny, Levant’s assigned companion for this outing.  It’s a thankless task because his charge is difficult and because decisions Levant’s wife threatens to make regarding her husband could jeopardize Alvin’s professional future.  You find yourself rooting for his well-being as well as that of the man he’s overseeing. 

Levant’s true passion, music, always took the backseat to his persona as an eclectic humorist.  Good Night, Oscar acknowledged that love and went the extra mile by letting us hear Hayes, as Levant, play his beloved instrument.  After his unfiltered live on-air discussion with Paar in 1961, one that had censors rabidly barking condemnations and left the show’s executive producer livid with exasperation, Levant played a long segment of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.  It was an unexpected highlight of the evening with Hayes leaving the audience agape at his musical virtuosity.  That added touch of class, along with the flawlessly exquisite mid-century set designed by Riw Rakkulchon and Jessie Bonaventure, draped more layers of excellence to an already quite strong effort.  From the looks of Good Night Oscar, it should be very well-received when it arrives on Broadway. 

Good Night, Oscar

Through April 24^th, 2022

Goodman Theatre

170 N. Dearborn St.

Chicago, IL  60601

www.goodmantheatre.org