The music and life of pianist and actor Oscar Levant is featured in Farmers Alley Theatre’s current production, Goodnight, Oscar. WMUK’s Gordon Bolar has this review.
Although there are a few who remember seeing Oscar Levant on television in the late fifties and early sixties, many more will be familiar with his mid-20th century movies including Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris.
While the films highlight the talents of this multi-faceted composer, conductor and pianist, Doug Wright’s play, Goodnight, Oscar yields an up-close and personal view of the bitter, funny, and uncontrollable individual, as celebrated on late night television.
Director Suzi Regan presents a gritty, raw, and unvarnished portrait of a witty genius shackled by drugs, alcohol, mental illness, and haunted by ghosts from his past. Levant is, in essence, a train wreck that neither the audience, nor television viewers at home can look away from.
To be sure, David Corlew’s performance as Oscar is in itself a remarkable tour de force. But credit Regan’s carefully orchestrated six-member supporting ensemble, with lifting this production from the realm of a biographical one-man-show, and into a more insightful revelation of the systems that cultivate, produce, exploit, monetize, and ultimately subdue an artist of Oscar Levant’s caliber. Here questions linger: Was Levant a victim, or did he too exploit the system?
Systems in question include the reputation-driven concert halls and the entertainment industry, specifically NBC, and late-night host, Jack Parr. Finally, we get a glimpse into the mental health system that treats Oscar’s numerous neuroses with prescription drugs and electric shock therapy.
Those who seek explanation for why Goodnight, Oscar so thoroughly captivates its viewers’ attention for the show’s ninety-five-minute duration, need look no further than the cast and their respective roles in the systems their characters serve.
The playwright provides each character with something clearly at stake, or in other words, something to fight for. And fight they do.
Because the theatregoers attending Farmers Alley are addressed as the TV studio audience for a live broadcast of The Tonight Show in 1958, and given countdown cues prior to airtime, the tension builds and the ante is raised long before Levant’s appearance.
Jacob Tyler Reinstein, as Max, the talk show’s young production manager, nervously reads instructions to the house. Robinson embraces Max’s affable role in pre-show chats with on-air guests. He is also careful not to invoke the wrath of his uncle, NBC President, Bob Sarnoff.
Prior to The Tonight Show’s opening, Atis Kleinbergs, as Sarnoff, provides fireworks in an electrically charged encounter with an intense and animated Jack Parr, played by Drew Parker.
Kleinbergs’ pushy character, red faced and quick to anger, forcefully expresses concerns about Levant’s volatility on tonight’s show. Parr defends his choice of guests, losing his otherwise even-tempered on-air demeanor, and frequently bends his full frame to mollify his boss. At stake is the future of the network, and Parr’s late-night slot.
Enter June, played by Veronica Dark. She appropriately renders Oscar’s spouse as one who chose to take charge of family decisions, including those related to Oscar, or else be relegated to the role of mousey wife, cowering in the wake of her husband’s psychotic episodes.
Before Oscar’s arrival, June shares with Parr some disturbing news that raises the stakes higher: Due to his deteriorating mental state, June recently had Oscar committed to Mt. Sinai Hospital. She also secured a four- hour pass for Oscar to be on tonight’s impending show. Given Oscar’s condition, the countdown clock now begins ticking in more ways than one.
Enter Oscar himself, into his dressing room with Alvin, played by Delanti Hall, a hospital orderly, driver, and minder in tow. Although reputation and celebrity would normally place Oscar far above Alvin in polite society, the society in charge of Mt. Sinai is far from polite. Hall’s spirited character holds his own with Oscar, matching wit, with practical wisdom.
Alvin’s motivation is to play it by hospital rules regarding Oscar’s prescription drug intake and keep his own record clean for a shot at medical school. Other than a momentary lapse of attention when Oscar consumes several Demerol, Hall’s steadfast Alvin is true to his mission.
The focus of the evening is of course Oscar Levant. David Corlew delivers a mercurial and masterful performance in the title role as he commands his dressing room audience for laughs, pills, and attention for his stories from his childhood and vast musical experience. Pursed lips, wildly blinking eyes, facial tics, and habitual rituals mark his obsessive-compulsive disorders.
Periodically, Corlew’s magnetic character seamlessly disassociates for a chat with his by-gone mentor, George Gershwin, played with icy charm by Jackson Medina. Here Oscar is haunted not by a ghost, but by the familiar musical selection that has defined his life: “Rhapsody in Blue.”
Corlew’s Oscar is a loquacious master of his dressing room domain, until wife June enters the room. His demeanor changes. He goes silent. He knows who holds the cards.
With Sarnoff, and the show’s host present, and June standing by, Oscar’s proclivity for media mayhem precipitates a four-way, heavy-weight verbal slugfest regarding Oscar’s conduct during the upcoming live interview with Parr. At stake here – pretty much everything.
Sitting on stools and chain smoking for the on-air chat, Parker’s Parr and Corlew’s Oscar are at ease in their element. Parr sets up each edgy wisecrack, and off-color joke that Oscar nonchalantly delivers before the national audience. Much to Sarnoff’s chagrin, Oscar methodically slaughters the sacred cows of religion, politics, and sex.
During a commercial break, with a fair amount of angst and trepidation, and at the behest of June, Oscar must now decide whether to return to the studio set to rescue his reputation, Parr’s show, and Sarnoff’s network. His vehicle would not be his own composition, but instead the now popular gift from Gershwin’s ghost that has both chained Oscar and made him a success.
The piece de resistance that follows is Corlew’s live rendition of Levant’s tribute to Gershwin. Having just witnessed this broken character ride the roller coaster of his tortured, fragmented world for more than an hour, Corlew’s vigorous performance at the piano leaves his audience surprised, stunned, and with a new appreciation for “Rhapsody in Blue” and Levant himself.