David Nehls and Miners Alley bring down the house with ‘Good Night, Oscar.’

Good Night, Oscar asks audiences to invest a lot of time in getting to know someone who’s not very likable. Somehow, Doug Wright’s 2022 play about an acerbic, largely forgotten celebrity succeeds — celebrating an artist while exploring a caustic, mentally frail person and those around him.

Oscar Levant was a pianist and composer who appeared in some films and later became a fixture on radio and TV panel shows. As depicted in the play, Levant is a Don Rickles sort who dished out insulting zingers but could also play piano like a dream — when his mental state allowed.

The play is set in 1958 during a live production of Jack Paar’s The Tonight Show, and Levant is portrayed in this Miners Alley production by David Nehls. It’s a dream role for Nehls, a familiar presence on Colorado stages mostly as a music director and keyboardist. Here, he steps into the spotlight to display considerable acting chops, playing a character so emotionally compromised that he physically crumples before us. Then, in Act 2, he blows the doors off the room with a stunning, 15-minute performance of George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.”

As Oscar Levant, Nehls shows us a man entirely uncomfortable in his own skin. He can’t sit down without looking like he’s new to chairs and couches; he smokes cigarettes like a man lost in the desert who’s found water and treats those around him like obstacles he must navigate on his way to who knows where.

This is a gorgeous production, lovingly directed by Warren Sherrill and showcasing Miners Alley at its best. Jonathan Scott-McKean’s set is a banger, featuring period furniture against a remarkable, dynamically lit backdrop able to project both the black-and-white and Technicolor of the era. Bits of nostalgic media — like a hilarious Camel cigarettes spot touting the brand as a favorite of physicians — add texture. Crystal McKenzie’s well-researched costumes keep the characters looking sharp for their parts.

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Drew Horwitz as Jack Paar (left) and David Nehls as Oscar Levant in ‘Good Night, Oscar.’ | Photo: RDGPhotography

Well-rounded cast

Set over a period of just a few hours when Levant gets a pass from “the loony bin” to appear on the show, Good Night is a deep character sketch of a man late in his career looking for meaning. Wright’s script imagines him at the center of a group of people picking at the bones of what’s left to various degrees. Paar (a convincingly oleaginous Drew Horwitz) is looking to juice ratings for his show during sweeps, and he knows the unpredictable Levant usually delivers. Studio head Bob Sarnoff (Matthew Murry) wants the same but shows zero tolerance for anything that might get him in trouble with the FCC. It’s an excellent stick-up-the-ass performance that makes us dislike Sarnoff almost as much as we do Levant.

Cal Meakins is spot-on as earnest studio page Max, who fawns over Levant no matter how much shit his idol shovels his way. Lisa DeCaro is tremendous as Levant’s long-suffering wife, June, who had him committed and dangles the keys to his freedom. It’s not entirely clear how much she wants him back in the house, but she teases it just enough to make the lowly Levant even more pathetic.

The only character who genuinely seems to have Levant’s best interests at heart is Alvin, the orderly who accompanies him from the mental hospital. Jozeph Mykaels nails the tough love the part demands and does a lot with what might otherwise be an afterthought role. Alvin doesn’t give a shit about Levant’s fame or talent; he’s there to do his job of keeping him safe.

David Nehls as Oscar Levine performs Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ in ‘Good Night, Oscar.’ | Photo: RDGPhotography

Gershwin

In real life, Levant was friends with George Gershwin and gained renown as a preeminent interpreter of the composer’s work after Gershwin’s premature death from a brain tumor in 1937. It’s a bit of a Salieri-Mozart relationship, and Wright illustrates it onstage with recurring appearances by Gershwin as a ghostly scold. This is an excellent Matthew Combs, decked out in a dark-blue tuxedo and popping up from time to time to sneeringly remind Levant he was never the great composer Gershwin was.

With such a frenemy living rent-free in his drug-addled mind, Levant doesn’t seem to have much of a chance of escaping his personal hell. But after prompting by Paar and June, he’s finally convinced to stumble his way to the grand piano — even after gobbling a handful of pills when Alvin’s out of the room.

He initially plans to play one of his own compositions, but at Gershwin’s prodding, he defaults to “Rhapsody in Blue” and gathers himself in front of a white grand piano on a turntable. This is not the studly performance of an accomplished concert pianist bent on displaying mastery of the work and the instrument. It’s a wounded animal, beset on all sides, pulling his last trick from a battered hat.

But it’s a damn good trick: Nehls wows the audience with the full, technically challenging piece, a virtuosic display reminding us how powerful “Rhapsody in Blue” is as a fusion of jazz and classical and an exemplar of American art. As a reflection of Levant’s own turbulent mind, the brash, chaotic thunder of “Blue” is hard to miss, and by the time those familiar notes end the piece, Levant is spent.

From left, David Nehls, Jozeph Mykaels and Cal Meakins in ‘Good Night, Oscar.’ | Photo: RDGPhotography

Good Night, Oscar is a tough show to watch and not for everyone. But after the show, I watched nearly everyone walking past Miners Alley Artistic Director Len Matheo at the front desk rave about it. (Two of them wondered whether Nehls was actually playing “Rhapsody in Blue” live; Matheo assured them he was.)

What’s impressive about this production is how well it uses the Miners Alley standing company. Familiar names like Warren Sherrill in the director’s chair, John Hauser on sound, Jonathan Scott-McKean’s excellent set and Vance McKenzie’s lighting all contribute to something far more than the sum of its parts. It’s so well cast that even with such a bombastic character at its center, the rest of the players still stand out in their own lanes.

We may leave the theatre thinking Oscar Levant was a tremendous jerk despite his talents, but as a study of a complex, uniquely American figure, Good Night, Oscar stands tall.