When you lose your place in the world, or it wants you to change who you have always been, where does that leave you? That is one of many thought-provoking questions triggered by Sean Hayes’ performance masterclass in the exceptional Good Luck, Oscar. 

Hayes looks at ease in reviving his award-winning portrayal of Oscar Levant, an American concert pianist, Hollywood icon and a very unwell man destroyed by his strong sense of his own inadequacies and anxieties. The piece, rather timely, centres around Levant’s controversial appearance on a late-night talk show hosted by Jack Parr (Ben Rappaport), thrust back into the spotlight by his desperate wife, having bust that talented musician out of the psychiatric hospital where he has been confined. 

Although initially, for Levant, unusually chipper, this courage quickly erodes when the spotlight turns upon his warped sense of humour, and his frustrations at not being seen as a musician in his own right, both of which lead to a spectacular, and devastating, breakdown. 

Hayes’ electric performance as Levant extends not just to conventional performance, but also includes a superb individual piano recital too. It is a complicated individual portrayal, yet Hayes shines in his task here with the woolly-mouthed expression and the tireless delivery of Levant’s numerous tics and twitches. Levant is self-deprecating yet Hayes still manages to mine humour out of Doug Wright’s writing in a manner that makes him oddly endearing, right up until the play’s moving conclusion. It is an extraordinary individual performance and one that whizzes the two-hour run time away. 

Rosalie Craig, as Levant’s fierce yet loving husband June, also shines as a woman caught in the crossfire between saving her husband’s professional reputation while also desperately trying to restore balance to her marriage. Craig’s wicked turn of emotion in this piece works well, but it is the quieter moments between her and Hayes where the emotional connection illuminates. 

Furthermore, Ben Rappaport’s Jack Parr also succeeds in blending the notion that Ben is Levant’s friend while also being desperate to make waves in his own career. It is through Parr, and the rest of those connected to the talk show’s network, that the play hammers home its ideas about the treatment of the vulnerable, and particularly the consuming nature of media and the arts can have on individuals who do and do not conform. These characters exploit and abuse Levant’s individuality, a deliberate choice to evoke sympathy, effectively, for the play’s protagonist. 

It is hard not to draw comparisons between this work and Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Both plays explore the loss of identity for non-conformist individuals, and both protagonists suffer desperate breakdowns in the face of lost opportunities and mentors. Here, Levant’s difficult relationship with musician George Gershwin (David Burnett) haunts the pianist, and this is incorporated nicely into Rachel Hauck’s set design, as well as Ben Stanton and Carolina Ortiz’s lighting choices, quickly blending reality with illusion. It all works neatly to capture Levant’s spiral, but in a way that is engrossing and entertaining as well as desperately moving too. 

Despite Levant’s crippling mental fragility, the play maintains a sense of humour and direction that sweeps us up quickly into the Hollywood star’s chaotic existence. This is a beautiful piece of theatre, with a stunning final 15 minutes, that, ironically just as in the play, leaves audiences pining for more from Levant.