If Sean Hayes doesn’t get a Tony nom for this, it’s a shanda! In Good Night, Oscar Hayes plays Oscar Levant, a composer / songwriter, great friend of George Gershwin, successful concert pianist and conductor. But he was probably best known for his quick, acid wit. Throughout the 1950s he was a frequent guest on all sorts of television shows, and for two years hosted a show of his own.

He was also seriously mentally ill. He was certainly what we today call bipolar, also definitely obsessive compulsive, and after a heart attack in 1952 addicted to a panoply of painkillers, Demerol being a particular favorite. Hayes, long since established as one of the greatest comic actors of our time, predictably kills Levant’s witticisms.

The most thrilling part, however, is how he portrays Levant’s pain, the cost of his genius. Hayes proves himself to be a titanically good dramatic actor as he delves boldly into Levant’s darker side. Good Night, Oscar portrays Levant’s appearance on The Tonight Show in 1958, when Jack Paar (Ben Rappaport), a raconteur on a par (pardon me for the raconteur-ish pun) with Levant, was the host. Much of the drama is corralling the wild child Levant into a pre-show ability to simply hold it together for national television.

Playwright Doug Wright captures Levant in full multi-colored madness, in all his complex unbalanced glory. Perhaps most touchingly he shows how haunted Levant is by the memory of Gershwin (John Zdrojeski) – his biggest hit was his recording of George’s “Rhapsody in Blue”, which was requested to the exclusion of anything he himself had written. Perhaps most spectacularly, Hayes plays piano with great virtuosity, in the style of Levant himself!!! Highly recommended.

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For more more about Jonathan Warman’s directing works, see jonathanwarman.wordpress.com.