Review: GOOD NIGHT, OSCAR, starring Sean Hayes, Barbican Theatre

This is an old-fashioned play. Men (and one woman) stand, sit and smoke. And talk - they talk lots and lots, often quite fast the way smart people do. No handheld microphones, no video projection, not even an unexpected swear. Just a great script, great acting and beautifully lit sets. In 2025, what could be more radical than that?

Oscar Levant (yep, me too) was a movie star, and much else, either side of World War II, a friend and acclaimed interpreter of George Gershwin’s work and a regular on TV talk shows before The Beatles changed them forever. So how come we don’t know him? Well, he was never the lead and, if you’ve got a Gene Kelly to look at, you’re unlikely to recall his piano man sidekick. And if Ira Gershwin struggled to be noticed in the incandescent light of his brother’s talent and charisma, what chance anyone else?

But Pulitzer Prize winner, Doug Wright, saw an opportunity to use Levant to say something about, well, television, entertainment, mental illness, big pharma, taboos, relationships, addiction, corporatism, authority and plenty more besides. Not bad for 100 minutes. It’s ironic that it appears on the same stage as The Seagull a few months ago, because it feels more Chekhovian than that production ever did.

Sean Hayes, Tony Award in stowage, crosses The Atlantic to reprise his role as Levant and it’s hard to overstate just how good he is, a one-man rebuttal for the disappointments many have felt paying top dollar for big Hollywood names in the West End.

He simply inhabits the part. There’s the desperate vulnerability of the addict, the ticks that speak of a roiling mind, the ruthless exploitation of the decency of others. But there’s also the speed of the wit, the grudging willingness to do the right thing, the sheer chutzpah of the man. Most of all, and this elevates the performance to the very best of any I’ve seen, there’s the charisma - Levant’s and Hayes’ - that bounces around this large house like a laser show.

With all that going on, it’s quite a job for the rest of the cast to establish a foothold, but they do. Rosalie Craig vests Oscar’s long-suffering wife, June, with a quiet dignity, but we also see exactly what she once saw, and still sees, in this impossible man with her sly smirks at yet another transgression. Daniel Adeosun, as Levant’s nurse/chaperone, Alvin, isn’t quite as indulgent, but he’s up against a master of manipulation and succumbs almost willingly to Oscar’s self-sabotage.

The only weak element of the play is in the writing of NBC exec, Bob Sarnoff, and production gopher, Max Weinbaum. Though Richard Katz and Eric Sirakian do what they can with them, both are caricatures we’ve seen too many times before, a rare instance of the play going for easy laughs.

Director, Lisa Peterson, brilliantly supported by lighting designers, Carolina Ortiz-Hererra and Ben Stanton, creates some of the most convincing hallucinatory scenes I’ve witnessed on a London stage. David Burnett shimmers as Gershwin, never quite praising Levant, but never quite rubbishing him either. Gershwin, given voice by Levant’s mind of course, offers as revealing a window into the power of deep neuroses as you’ll find in drama.

Ben Rappaport has a lot of fun with Jack Paar, conjuring a talkshow host’s oily ease in front of camera and a willingness to egg on Levant’s tragic naughtiness in search of ratings. In London, if not in New York, many will recall Bill Grundy’s infamous altercation with the Sex Pistols, now almost quaint, 49 years on. At a time when the Late Night hosts are leading the charge of a supine polity against authoritarianism (and paying the price), it’s a reminder of the traditions inherited by Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart et al. Is Paar helping or exploiting a friend on the skids? Both probably.

A last mention for Rachel Hauck’s extraordinary set - almost a character in itself - and then I, unlike Oscar, can soon stop talking. 

Somebody other than Hayes may pick up Best Actor awards come the end of the year, but I seriously doubt it after he raises Levant to Vanya-like heights. Don’t miss him! 

Read our interview with Ben Rappaport who plays Jack Paar here.

Good Night, Oscar runs at Barbican Theatre until 21 September

Photo images: Johan Persson

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