Sean Hayes’ Tony-winning performance as 1950s-star Oscar Levant makes this stage play a mesmerising must-see.
After starring as Jack McFarland in 11 seasons of US sitcom Will & Grace, Sean Hayes could have rested on his laurels and lived off his residuals. Instead, he’s taken less showy roles in a few TV shows and films and a very showy one in the play Good Night, Oscar, for which he won the Tony Award as Best Actor after it transferred from Chicago to Broadway in 2023.
And deservedly so, as is proven on this side of the pond now it has settled in for a seven-week run at the Barbican Theatre. Hayes’s performance is a revelation as he completely disappears into the character of nervy Levant –a sort of latter-day Salieri whose fame as a pianist, comedian, actor and all-round multi-hyphenate in the 1940s and 1950s was second-tier compared to screen co-stars like Gene Kelly and his idol and mentor George Gershwin.
Little known in the UK, Levant was a mainstay on Jack Parr’s US chat show, and Doug Wright’s play imagines one such appearance. Levant’s wife springs him from the institution she’s had him committed to because of his addictions and mental health struggles, and he arrives at the studio, as one character puts it, like “Eeyore in a cheap suit”.
Hayes plays him as a bundle of nerves, with the voice of an over-medicated James Stewart and a body that vibrates with angst, with Oscar’s life flashing before our eyes as he reflects on a troubled past.
The supporting players (including Rosalie Craig as Levant’s wife June and Ben Rappaport as Parr) are all terrific, as is Rachel Hauck’s set. But this is Hayes’ show and he is mesmerising, both in all that backstage distress and when Levant is in front of the TV cameras, delivering near-the-knuckle witticisms guaranteed to have the censors in a tizzy.
Even more astonishing is when he sits at the piano to perform Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. All but the most casual ticket buyers will know by now that Hayes is classically trained, since he’s talked about it in interviews leading up to the show’s London opening.
But to witness his playing in person is astounding. It feels as though Levant is using the instrument to exorcise his demons, just as Hayes himself lays the ghost of Jack McFarland to rest. The play itself sometimes skims the surface of its difficult subject matter, but Hayes should clear his mantelpiece because I’d be surprised if he doesn’t win an Olivier Award come awards season.
Good Night, Oscar is at the Barbican Theatre until 21 September.
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