Alex More is a struggling Los Angeles actor who finds himself taking an odd job working in the Malibu basement of a Hollywood mega-star. When the A-lister makes a rare appearance one day, Buyer & Cellar launches into an outrageous look at fame and the price that accompanies it.
What Is the Story of Buyer & Cellar?
Inspired by Barbra Streisand’s My Passion for Design, Buyer & Cellar is part truth, part fiction. The facts? Streisand has a shopping mall in the basement of her Malibu home, featuring a doll shop, an antique clothing store and a sweets shop, complete with a frozen yogurt machine, as detailed in her 2010 book. Playwright Jonathan Tolins takes the wackiness a step further as he imagines a man who is hired to work in the basement of the mall…with Babs as his only customer. The one-man show tells the story of Alex More, a struggling Los Angeles actor who takes a gig working in the basement mall, and develops an unlikely and hilarious friendship with Streisand.
"Tolins handles this subtext with such subtlety that we’re hardly aware of the chill that creeps into the basement of this fantasy world, and Urie gives such a nuanced reading of Alex’s devastating social blunder that it’s a big shock when the lights go out on Main Street."
Variety
Marilyn Stasio
"A reflection on all of us 'struggling to make a perfect little world to fit our life into,' it’s a seriously funny and remarkably sustained slice of absurdist whimsy on which both Barbra lovers and haters will be sold."
The New York Times
David Rooney
"Under Stephen Brackett's direction and with Urie’s wonderful balance of tart and sweet, the show’s 90 minutes, cleverly packed with Streisand lore, zip by."
The New York Daily News
Joe Dziemianowicz
