If ever a play had good reason to front-load itself with exposition, Good Night, Oscar is it. Once among America's premiere wits and raconteurs, Oscar Levant has gone the way of many another once-famous wits and raconteurs. Which is to say, he needs lots of exposition.
In Doug Wright’s mostly unsatisfying dramedy, which opened Monday night at the Belasco Theatre, Sean Hayes takes on the role of Oscar Levant, the virtuoso piano player and humorist who became popular and controversial during the early days of TV.
Hayes gives a spectacularly intense and unstinting performance, a Broadway tour-de-force wherein the honest work bespeaks of a beautiful homage to this phenomenally talented real-life character,