Buyer & Cellar
Jonathan Tolins
King’s Head Theatre
Star rating: 3
Photograph: Genevieve Girling
It’s an interesting, but esoteric, idea for a play. If you’re not a Barbara Streisand aficionado, then many of the jokes will pass you by, so you might as well stay at home.
Alex More (Rob Madge) is a young, gay, American actor, desperate for work. He is hired to work in Barbara Streisand’s spacious basement which is set up like a shopping mall – as described in her real-life book My Passion for Design (2010). Taking that absurd, eccentric self indulgence as his starting point, playwright Jonathan Tolins imagines conversations and situations between Alex and his employer.
Rob Madge is a supremely talented actor, and he’s well directed by Kirk Jameson, although 100 minutes is very long time to sustain a one man play. He hops effortlessly and convincingly in and out of roles – conversations with his boyfriend at home, Streisand’s major domo, her guests and of course Streisand herself. And his comic timing is at masterclass level. He can get gales of laughter from simply making a remark and then fixing the audience with a look. He also nails a comfortable LA accent for More.
And it’s all done in a simple playing space with raked seating on three sides, a single chair and evocative lighting, designed by Jack Weir.
The real issue with Buyer and Cellar is the length. This concept would work much better, in the UK at least, as a snappy 60 minute one act play. It played off- Broadway ten years ago and then toured with a lot of acclaim. I’m assuming first, that American audiences feel short-changed if they don’t get at least an hour and a half and second, that more of them are steeped in Streisand culture. And of course they don’t have to sit on the execrably uncomfortable chairs provided at Kings Head Theatre.
