Does anyone remember Oscar Levant? A singular personality, Levant was a talented concert pianist who appeared in movies (An American in Paris, The Band Wagon) and as a sought-after guest on talk shows in TV’s early days. Appearances on The Tonight Show with host Jack Paar showed off Levant as a witty and  personable raconteur who was unafraid to speak frankly about his own shortcomings—yet, because he was an endless font of hilarious one-liners (“this [show] and the psych ward...the only two places in the world I can still get repeat bookings,” he said), there was little consideration from others about his own mental well-being.

 

Thanks to Sean Hayes, who is simply spectacular as Levant, Doug Wright’s Good Night, Oscar (which was written for Hayes) is a must-see 100 minutes in the theater. The play, fictionalizing an appearance by Levant on Paar’s show in 1958, is based on real events: here, Oscar’s steely wife June—who committed her husband a month earlier because of his mental health struggles—signs him out of the institution for a few hours so he can be Paar’s guest. In the play, Wright introduces Paar (a game Ben Rappaport), who’s nervous about whether his unreliable guest will show up; NBC boss Bob Sarnoff (a furtive Peter Grosz), who’s incensed that Levant’s unstable behavior may ruin a live show; and Paar’s (fictional) assistant Max (an amusing Alex Wyse), who knows seemingly every detail about Oscar’s screen career. 

 

With time to spare, Oscar arrives—after June (a fine but underused Emily Bergl) smooths things over with Paar and Sarnoff—along with his chaperone, Alvin (a solid Marchant Davis), who’s an orderly from the hospital carrying a valise filled with assorted pills for his patient. That triggers Wright’s most contrived episode in the play, as Oscar conveniently gets to the stash of pills from the otherwise careful Alvin with help from Max before going to talk to Paar in front of millions of viewers. 

 

Wright’s script also awkwardly inserts the ghost of George Gershwin (a slick John Zdrojeski) into the proceedings, appearing as a figment of Oscar’s unruly imagination—Oscar had a complicated relationship with Gershwin, who was far more famous, beloved and wealthy than Oscar. The legend of Gershwin was burnished when he died far too young at age 38, while Oscar kept going, making money playing Gershwin’s greatest hits at the piano while ignoring his own ability to compose.

 

It’s not until Levant and Paar are seated in front of the TV camera trading quips that Good Night, Oscar finally stops pretending it’s more than a Sean Hayes vehicle. The pair goes back and forth about topics not suitable for late night TV in the late 50s, such as politics, sex and religion. (Oscar tells Paar that God “was my roommate” at “this swank sanitarium over in Del Rey.”) Hayes magisterially reminds us why Oscar was the perfect talk-show guest, funny but unpredictable, slightly nervous and even sad. 

 

Director Lisa Peterson smoothly steers Wright’s bumpy but entertaining ride toward the play’s astonishing coup de theatre. Oscar reluctantly agrees to perform at the piano on The Tonight Show but insists he’ll play one of his own works. It is here that Hayes’ slow-burn performance—throughout, he has the nervous tics down and he imitates the unique-sounding voice with wondrous acuity, never resorting to caricature but instead making Oscar richly, sympathetically—and often uproariously—human. 

 

Oscar sits down at the piano, fending off Gershwin’s taunting spirit with the sarcastic retort, “Oh, God...you’re my fantasy...I’m the one making up your lines.” He then plays the first chords of Gershwin’s classic Rhapsody in Blue. This is where Hayes—an accomplished pianist himself—takes his portrayal to an rarefied level. Not only does he perform Rhapsody in Blue in enormously impressive fashion (especially since he plays most of it with little or no orchestral accompaniment) but he plays it brilliantly in character as Oscar, a fiendishly difficult feat to pull off persuasively.

 

Hayes’ histrionically and musically powerful performance is topped by the ultimate showstopping number—the audience stands, for once appropriately, for a good long while after he finishes playing the piece—more so than anything in Sweeney Todd, Camelot or Funny Girl. Good Night, Oscar itself might not be a good play, but as long as Hayes is channeling Oscar, through his wit and while sitting at the piano, it’s the most welcome vehicle on Broadway.

 

 

 

Lionel Bart’s Oliver!—a 1960 musical adaptation of the Dickens classic Oliver Twist, which went to Broadway three years later—probably seemed old-fashioned at its premiere. That the faithful film version, directed by Carol Reed, won the Oscar for best picture of 1968 (beating out even less worthy contenders as Funny Girl and Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, while groundbreaking classics 2001 and The Battle of Algiers were snubbed) has only cemented its rep as the conventional Hollywood musical’s last gasp.

 

Oliver! has rarely been seen in New York since—although it’s had several successful London revivals—possibly because it’s very “English” and it needs several talented young performers to play the orphans in master thief Fagin’s employ, especially the Artful Dodger and Oliver himself, who must be a good actor, singer and dancer. I saw the show at the Stratford Festival in 2006, with Colm Feore a deliciously dastardly Fagin, but a flop 1984 Broadway revival with Ron Moody (who played Fagin in the movie) and Patti Lupone that played for a month has killed it in New York…until now.

 

Lear deBessonet’s staging for Encores—which brings back older musicals for short runs, often allowing stars to essay roles they might not otherwise get to play—is savvily paced, with athletic choreography by Lorin Latarro. A musical about child labor and abuse that also sheds much of the novel’s expansive plotting and voluminous characters will always be problematic, but deBessonet balances keeping Bart’s bouncy songs front and center while hinting at the story’s darker aspects—literally, thanks to Justin Townsend’s moody lighting on David Rockwell’s clever two-tiered set. 

 

Bart’s charming music-hall score is impossibly catchy, with numbers like “Consider Yourself,” “Oom Pah Pah” and “You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two” becoming singalongs for cast and audience. Then there’s the torch song “As Long as He Needs Me,” passionately sung by Nancy, a Fagin associate and kept woman of evil villain Bill Sikes, after Bill beats her up. This uneasy mix of love song and female defiance leaves a strange taste in the mouth but, as sung by Lilli Cooper, whose Nancy is a fiery onstage presence, its hair-raising bravado brings down the house. 

 

Equally  is “Reviewing the Situation,” which finds Fagin ruminating on his life choices. Fagin is a juicy role for any actor and the song is a magnificent way to give the character a little more nuance; Raúl Esparza dazzlingly sinks his teeth into the song and the part, bounding about the stage and interacting with the terrific cast of young boys led by Benjamin Palak, an irresistible Oliver. The mesmerizing Esparza gives the song an emotionally direct power, turning it into a Sondheim-like mini-drama.

 

The usual Encores luxury casting provides roles for veteran Broadway hams Brad Oscar and Mary Testa, who further enliven the proceedings as Oliver’s antagonists Mr. Bumble and Widow Corney in the delightful duet, “I Shall Scream.” This Oliver! does nicely as a reminder that “old-fashioned” is sometimes a virtue.