By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“)
Capturing the wit and destructive lifestyle of humorist Oscar Levant is a daunting task for any actor attempting to portray the tortured genius, but in Douglas Wright’s Good Night, Oscar, there is an additional skill set required: the actor must be able to perform flawlessly at the piano keyboard.
While there are many actors who could pull off the acting chops handsomely, there are far fewer who have the musical skill set necessary to render the live musical performance. In New Orleans there is probably only one seasoned actor cum talented pianist who could carry off such a demanding role and that is Michael Paternostro.
Paternostro’s credits include appearances as an original cast member of the Tony Award-winning Best Musical Fosse and other Broadway shows like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, revivals of Guys and Dolls and A Chorus Line and several national tours. More to the point, not only has he enjoyed a stellar career as an actor, but he has also worked extensively as a music director in New York, across the country and in New Orleans.
With a huge wheelhouse of tics and dour faces, Paternostro dutifully turns in an emotional and thoroughly satisfying performance as Levant, a pill-popping, hypochondriac Jew with obsessive compulsive disorder and overwhelming feelings of insecurity and dread laid out for all the world to see.
Seventy years ago everyone knew who Levant was and appreciated his musical gifts and acerbic wit.
Indeed, A. J. Allegra, the artistic director at Le Petit Theatre, fully admits (like most Gen Xers) he had no idea who Oscar Levant was when he was first given the nod as director of the project. Levant, who improbably was also a movie star, was best preserved on celluloid in “An American in Paris” opposite Gene Kelly. That film featured the music of George Gershwin, Levant’s best friend and, at the time of the music composer’s death, the pianist was considered his greatest interpreter.
As Wright’s tautly-written work reveals, Levant was also a brilliant conversationalist and frequent guest on radio and TV talk shows. Levant was known for speaking his mind, sometimes crossing the line of propriety at the expense of his own brand of blue humor. He threw out one-liners as fast as any stand-up comedian of today, but Levant did it without a room of comedy writers.
At the heart of his neurotic behavior was the knowledge that he was probably the smartest person in the room. Wright’s humorous script shows that everyone used Levant for their own purposes. He was his own worst enemy, but he needed to be out in the public to satisfy an obsessive craving for adulation. People like The Tonight Show host Jack Paar with the power to put him in the spotlight used Levant for they all knew he was grist for the ratings mill. People would tune in to see what outrageous thing he might say on live TV and rarely were they disappointed.
Kevin Wheatley plays Paar, who would have been about 40 at the time of this imagined TV booking in 1958. Paar, who eventually resigned from his position at the top of the NBC network lineup some four years later over the telling of a “watercloset joke,” is seen by the playwright as both a shrewd manipulator and a man desperate for ratings. Paar is Levant’s biggest cheerleader, but even he is shocked to learn the current state to which the mad genius has been reduced.
Much to the chagrin of network president Bob Sarnoff (Nick Strauss), Levant has been scheduled and approved by Parr to appear on The Tonight Show without his okay. Unbeknown to both of the men or anyone at NBC, the booking has been accepted by his wife June Levant (the remarkable Leslie Castay), who withholds the fact that her husband has checked himself into a psychiatric hospital to deal with his psychoses and addictions.
Castay, who has also enjoyed her own Broadway career and worked closely with Paternostro in the past, is perfectly cast as June, a determined manager of her husband’s career and an overly protective spouse and mother who wants her impossibly-addicted spouse and father of their three daughters to behave like a more normal person.
She knows her husband has to accept the invitation to appear on live television, even if she has to lie to the authorities at the asylum in order to make it happen.
Even before we see her husband on stage, we can feel her frustration in dealing with his superior intellect and terrible depression. She is overwrought with concerns for his health and the best way to keep him and her family safe. The trouble is he’s Oscar Levant, a man who is only normal when high on one medication or using another to wean him from the first drug.
According to legend, Levant was as knowledgable about pills as a licensed pharmacist and possessed a tolerance well above the levels expected for average users. In his role as Levant, Paternostro is crafty and manipulative as he takes advantage of Max Weinbaum, an inexperienced NBC intern and Sarnoff’s nephew (Zane Sviansky), as well as an orderly from his sanitarian, Alvin Finney (KC Simms), who accompanies him on a four-hour pass, carrying a case full of pills for emergencies.
The elephant in the room is, of course, George Gershwin, the long revered, but deceased confidant of Levant, who manages to haunt him during his waking hours. Reid Williams plays the sophisticated songwriter, full of bluster as Levant remembers him. It is in Gershwin’s shadow that Levant fears he must exist, never to be seen as an accomplished songwriter and pianist in his own right.
He feels tortured and resists channeling Gershwin on the live TV show, despite being prompted to do so by Parr. He insists he will only perform one of his own lesser-known works instead of a piece by Gershwin. Eventually, his angst notwithstanding, he gives in to an argument he holds with Gershwin. After turning in an outstanding performance of “Rhapsody in Blue” that wows the TV studio audience, he collapses back into his dressing room, exhausted and drained.
Wright has written a remarkable piece of theatre for the stage and Paternostro shines as a star of the highest order of magnitude.
Good Night, Oscar won a well-deserved Tony Award as Best Actor in a Play for star Sean Hayes in 2023. Paternostro and Castay’s powerful and at times tender performances are sublimely rendered and Paternostro’s musical expertise on the keyboards qualifies this production as meriting special consideration. Supporting performances by Strauss as Sarnoff, Zane Svjansky as his nephew, the intern Max, and KC Simms as the orderly Alvin are all very good, too. But these are essentially dressing for the major characters of Oscar and June Levant.
Allegra’s direction is outstanding as is the simple, yet effective scenic designs provided by Steve Schepker. Daniel Zimmer and Jamie Doyle are also quite good providing the lighting and sound designs, respectively. Daniel Rigamer’s period costuming is spot on and complemented immensely by Laurin Hart’s wig and hair designs.
Good Night, Oscar (1 hour and 45 minutes with a 15-minute intermission) by Doug Wright finishes its run at Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carré, 616 St. Peter St. in New Orleans, this weekend with nightly performances on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. The final matinee on Sunday, Jan. 26, is at 3:00 p.m.
