Critic’s Pick
Here’s a good sign: I read Jonathan Tolins’ Buyer and Cellar before seeing its regional premiere at Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati on Wednesday. It’s an amusing script and knowing things ahead of time does not trouble me, even if it takes some of the surprise out of the experience. But the performance by Nick Cearley had me laughing out loud, even when I knew what was coming. He’s that good.
Here’s the premise, explained right up front by Cearley, even before he steps into the persona of actor Alex More: In 2010, Barbra Streisand published a coffee-table book she wrote and shot photos for, My Passion for Design. It was a vanity project, to be sure, devoted to her Malibu estate, especially the shopping mall she’s created in the basement of the faux-barn on the grounds. It’s comprised of “shoppes” artfully displaying her staggering collections of costumes, furnishings and countless tchotchkes acquired during her long and successful career. No one visits but Barbra. The “cellar” and its sole customer really exist — the book is evidence.
Tolins imagined an actor recruited to pose as a shopkeeper for “the customer,” who drops by to browse and barter. That’s the part the Cearley takes on, and we’re privy to his recounting his astonishing adventure — during which he describes and recreates not just the actor but also several other colorful individuals. We meet his angsty boyfriend Bary, an unsuccessful screenwriter who has boundless recall of the details of Streisand’s life and legend. There’s a swishy HR manager who helps Alex get a job after being fired for a nasty encounter at Disney World with a mouthy kid. Sharon, Streisand’s gruff, no-nonsense estate manager, shows up frequently to bark orders and smooth egos, as does actor James Brolin, sent on a frozen-yogurt mission by the center of the story’s universe, Barbra herself.
Cearley claims that Alex won’t “become” the legendary diva. But he conjures her image and presence with simple gestures — a quick hair stroke, a coy turn of the head, a remark tossed back over a shoulder, hands stroking one another or rising to a forehead. We hear her over-pronounced diction and witness her vacillation between being a star and needing a friend — roles she’s played in movies as well as, we’re led to believe, in life.
Cearley is onstage for more than 90 minutes of nonstop talking and storytelling — no intermission, no quick stepping off even for a drink of water. It’s a tremendous feat of memorization and performance, made all the more impressive because it’s done so naturally and off-handedly. He often speaks directly to the audience, picking up on a reaction to something amusing turn of events he’s reported, making his delivery all the more conversational and engaging. Alex is a quirky but likeable character, a very out-there, over-the-top gay guy.
Such a role could easily turn this show into a snarky gossip-fest about his experience with Streisand. But it doesn’t, thanks to Tolins’ clever writing and especially because of Cearley’s performance. Even though Buyer and Cellar is clearly a fantasy, and Streisand is portrayed in a rather narrow and somewhat predictable caricature, the ultimate effect is one of admiration and affection. She and Alex don’t exactly become friends, but confidences are exchanged. And Alex is certainly changed and strengthened by his outlandish experience.
You’ll leave the theater feeling as if you’ve eavesdropped on a pretty amazing experience — even if it’s not for real. What is for real is a very entertaining performance of a smartly conceived comedy.
BUYER AND CELLAR, presented by Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati, continues through Nov. 1.
This article appears in Oct 14-20, 2015.
