"You Can't Take It With You" on Broadway: Crazy Fun Times That Will Remind You of Thanksgivingby Randi / October 24, 2014
I never thought I would miss or even appreciate Gwyneth Paltrow. Sure, she was never hocking $200 white t-shirts and fair-trade moccasin shavings in her movies, but her Gooping activity has infiltrated most people’s memories of her acting history. Her film career is clouded with the smoke emanating from her custom glass gilded barbecue for macrobiotic mushrooms and meat from animals she petted with Mario Batali. But she was a pretty good actress, remember? And her Viola de Lesseps in “Shakespeare in Love” was fantastic, Oscar-worthy and Oscar-winning stuff.
So why did I all of a sudden recall Gwynnie’s ‘90s-era acting ability with such fondness? It’s kind of mean, but it’s because I just saw the new play version of “Shakespeare in Love” on the West End. It’s a lovely, fun show that you’ll enjoy, especially if you liked the movie. But if, like me, you loved the movie, so much so that you confront the 90% of the populace that still likes to argue that it shouldn’t have won Best Picture over “Saving Private Ryan”, then you will also, like me, find various quibbles with this show’s lack of editing, its pushing of easy physical laughs, and…the crazy voice of its Viola. (I mean, you don’t have to have even seen the movie to agree with the latter.)
Now listen. The actress playing Viola, Lucy Briggs-Owen, is wonderful. Especially in the second act, she absolutely won me over and made me cry and stuff. But I still just cannot get over her voice. She has the raspy, gravelly voice of a 2-packs a day night-shift trucker who counts Marge Simpson and Harvey Fierstein as close relatives. During Act 1, I was wide-eyed with disbelief that a character whose entire purpose rests on the gloriousness of her speaking voice was cast so surprisingly. It’s actually hilarious. The story will hook you nonetheless, as the producers perhaps try to prove that one’s voice doesn’t matter as long as you are beautiful, or something? I doubt that was their aim.
Anyway, yes, so the story is indeed centered on Viola’s voice, or what she does with it: act. She is a noble lady promised to marry a truly awful man named Wessex, but she just wants to be an actor, especially in Shakespeare’s plays, because she has an enormous literary crush on him and yearns for her life to be filled with poetry, as all young girls do. Fortunately for her, she’s actually a superb actor. Viola calls up all her courage and auditions for a new play disguised as a man, meeting the bard himself during her ‘amazing’ audition. This is when I started to roll my eyes a little. At this point, Will Shakespeare is super down in the dumps, dirty-haired, shirt-unbuttoned, totally out of sorts and depressed that he’ll never be able to find a star for his new play “Romeo and Ethel the Pirate’s Daughter”. We see awful no good actor after awful no good actor butcher auditions as Will sinks deeper. But then Viola, disguised as Thomas Kent, enters and begins her monologue from “Two Gentlemen of Verona”, and it’s supposed to rouse Will from the darkness, give him hope in his play, and make him fall in a sort of awe-inspired love. But…but…but…her voice! I didn’t believe that the anti-smoking ad that Viola seemed to make out of “What light be light if Sylvia be not seen” would have changed Will’s life so. Well, but it did, so I’ll stop mocking the poor girl’s voice. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a fantastic actress; I just didn’t get her for this part where the purity and beauty of the voice is so important! The best is in the famous canoe scene, when Will is describing to ‘Thomas’ his feelings for Viola, and she’s like “tell me about her beauty; what’s her hair like?” and Will’s like “long and blonde so nice” and Viola’s like “and her lips” and Will’s like “erma, such lips” and then Viola’s like “and her voice?” and I cackled.
Anywayyyyy, so Will’s like erma p. gerd, I found my Romeo, and at about the same time, he sees the undisguised Viola at a ball he crashed, and is like, erma p., I found my muse and my love because I loves me some long blonde hair and influenza-ridden smoker voice. I’m sorry now I’m done. So Will Shakespeare, this beyond brilliant best playwright of all time, OF ALL TIME, doesn’t realize that they’re the same person even though all his plays feature gender-bending disguises. I guess all those plot-twists come after this point in time, inspired by Viola. Cute.
Oh besides the voice, the craziest change from the movie is how stupid Will seems before he meets Viola/Thomas. The play starts with him trying to write Sonnet #18, “Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Day”, with the whole company watching. It’s kind of funny, how he can’t finish the first line, but then it gets tiresome when we hear the sonnet for the 9th time in one act. Also, Christopher Marlowe helps him write it, or really writes most of it for him. He also gives Will most of the groundwork for the main conflict of “Romeo & Juliet”, plus the name Juliet. In the play, it’s completely different from the not-so-good-natured playwright rivalry of the movie. Instead, the play shows them as pretty much BFFs, with Marlowe being the brains of the operation and Will being brilliant only when inspired by love. Marlowe’s death is that much sadder, and I loved their boyish friendship. But I didn’t like how the entire first act made Will sort of a buffoon. It is very easy and effective to show writer’s block as the movie did – somewhat subtly and realistically. It doesn’t need to be over the top. Who doesn’t know what writer’s block is! It’s unnecessary to show writer’s block by having the writer seem stupid. Now that’s just offensive to all writers. I did, however, really like the actor playing Marlowe, and I am glad they made the part so much bigger and meatier for the play for his sake, so let’s call it a draw.
The rest of Shakespeare’s acting troupe included a mustachioed yet winning pirate with long greasy hair playing the Ben Affleck role, a young pretty-faced boy who plays the girl parts while he can, and a tailor given the prologue whose stutter we’re supposed to laugh at?? In the film, the stutterer was someone you rooted for and cheered with when he conquered it with performing. But in the show, it felt more like the stutter was on display for the audience to ridicule. Not a good change. Please, if you see this or any other show ever, you’re probably a douche if you laugh at disability on display.
Queen Elizabeth, the role Judi Dench won an Oscar for despite only having like 4 lines and being onscreen for a shorter time than it takes me to tie my shoes, is played more humorous than regal here, which is somewhat off-putting. I don’t know Lizzie the I like I know Lizzie the II, but I’m pretty sure neither of them would be humorous in front of the general public. In front of family and friends, sure, but not in front of poor people. This Queen was written, directed, and acted just a little too familiarly. I want my queens bitchy, stern, and formal, thanks.
My favorite minor character I didn’t even realize was my favorite until the program verified it afterwards. Paul Chahidi, who was the glorious maid in Twelfth Night on Broadway last season (with Mark Rylance, originally at the Globe), played the Geoffrey Rush producer part of Henslowe. Paul Chahidi is superb and I want to see him as the humorous sidekick in pretty much every single play, even those without humorous sidekicks. Rush gave the movie its major memorable line, as he said at various points, to explain how things sort of work themselves out, “It’s a mystery!” and it was adorable, and we liked it, and we loved it. Chahidi’s Henslowe says it once early on and I smiled…but then in Act Two, he started saying it more and more. In the final 20 minutes, I think he said it 4 times. That is too many. That’s the writer’s fault, not Chahidi’s (Paul’s likeability is what saves us from groaning) but that’s something that should have been caught. That overuse and the 9 times we have to listen to Sonnet #18 should have been addressed by editors.
Regardless of these quibbles, the play is overall enjoyable and should make you laugh and cry and laugh and cry some more if you are not a robot. They really should have taken the opportunity to make this a musical and try to elevate it above and beyond the movie, rather than aiming to equal it, but I’ll leave that development to future artists. The story is strong enough without music, I guess. Will and Viola fall in love, Will is totally inspired and writes the genius “Romeo & Juliet” (it’s genius, even if you’re still sick of it from middle school), and Viola has to follow the queen’s and her father’s orders and marry Wessex. This oh this was also much worse than the movie. Wessex is a total shit in both, just a horrible awful man, but at least in the movie he looked like Colin Firth so you didn’t feel toooo badly for Viola. Here he’s just a normal so it’s real sad. Also, her father (whom I don’t think we see in the movie) is an even worse shit. So at least she gets away from him. The maid, the best part of the movie because it’s Imelda Stanton, is just okay here. She kind of milks her “It is a new day!” line to get laughs from the audience when really it should only be the set-up for Viola’s “It is a new world” reply, which is instead tossed aside.
Tom Bateman as Will works unbelievably hard, so hard that the sweat literally pours off of him throughout the show. His hair was soaking wet the entire time, even at stage door. I was like, “I don’t know how you are going to do a second show tonight” and he said “I don’t know either!” which is funny and self-deprecating but then he lit a cigarette and I was like, oh so you want to struggle to keep up, I get it.
So, anyway, no matter how you felt about the movie, this show is worth seeing. It’s not perfect, and like 99% of shows (/movies/television/books/anything), I wish I was able to edit it before it was considered set and finished, but alas, it has a few flaws. Luckily, these flaws won’t keep you from enjoying the show, and at least in the case of Viola’s uncharacteristically husky voice, some of them will help you enjoy it more. Okay now I’m done making fun.
Anyway, yes, so the story is indeed centered on Viola’s voice, or what she does with it: act. She is a noble lady promised to marry a truly awful man named Wessex, but she just wants to be an actor, especially in Shakespeare’s plays, because she has an enormous literary crush on him and yearns for her life to be filled with poetry, as all young girls do. Fortunately for her, she’s actually a superb actor. Viola calls up all her courage and auditions for a new play disguised as a man, meeting the bard himself during her ‘amazing’ audition. This is when I started to roll my eyes a little. At this point, Will Shakespeare is super down in the dumps, dirty-haired, shirt-unbuttoned, totally out of sorts and depressed that he’ll never be able to find a star for his new play “Romeo and Ethel the Pirate’s Daughter”. We see awful no good actor after awful no good actor butcher auditions as Will sinks deeper. But then Viola, disguised as Thomas Kent, enters and begins her monologue from “Two Gentlemen of Verona”, and it’s supposed to rouse Will from the darkness, give him hope in his play, and make him fall in a sort of awe-inspired love. But…but…but…her voice! I didn’t believe that the anti-smoking ad that Viola seemed to make out of “What light be light if Sylvia be not seen” would have changed Will’s life so. Well, but it did, so I’ll stop mocking the poor girl’s voice. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a fantastic actress; I just didn’t get her for this part where the purity and beauty of the voice is so important! The best is in the famous canoe scene, when Will is describing to ‘Thomas’ his feelings for Viola, and she’s like “tell me about her beauty; what’s her hair like?” and Will’s like “long and blonde so nice” and Viola’s like “and her lips” and Will’s like “erma, such lips” and then Viola’s like “and her voice?” and I cackled.
Anywayyyyy, so Will’s like erma p. gerd, I found my Romeo, and at about the same time, he sees the undisguised Viola at a ball he crashed, and is like, erma p., I found my muse and my love because I loves me some long blonde hair and influenza-ridden smoker voice. I’m sorry now I’m done. So Will Shakespeare, this beyond brilliant best playwright of all time, OF ALL TIME, doesn’t realize that they’re the same person even though all his plays feature gender-bending disguises. I guess all those plot-twists come after this point in time, inspired by Viola. Cute.
Oh besides the voice, the craziest change from the movie is how stupid Will seems before he meets Viola/Thomas. The play starts with him trying to write Sonnet #18, “Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Day”, with the whole company watching. It’s kind of funny, how he can’t finish the first line, but then it gets tiresome when we hear the sonnet for the 9th time in one act. Also, Christopher Marlowe helps him write it, or really writes most of it for him. He also gives Will most of the groundwork for the main conflict of “Romeo & Juliet”, plus the name Juliet. In the play, it’s completely different from the not-so-good-natured playwright rivalry of the movie. Instead, the play shows them as pretty much BFFs, with Marlowe being the brains of the operation and Will being brilliant only when inspired by love. Marlowe’s death is that much sadder, and I loved their boyish friendship. But I didn’t like how the entire first act made Will sort of a buffoon. It is very easy and effective to show writer’s block as the movie did – somewhat subtly and realistically. It doesn’t need to be over the top. Who doesn’t know what writer’s block is! It’s unnecessary to show writer’s block by having the writer seem stupid. Now that’s just offensive to all writers. I did, however, really like the actor playing Marlowe, and I am glad they made the part so much bigger and meatier for the play for his sake, so let’s call it a draw.
The rest of Shakespeare’s acting troupe included a mustachioed yet winning pirate with long greasy hair playing the Ben Affleck role, a young pretty-faced boy who plays the girl parts while he can, and a tailor given the prologue whose stutter we’re supposed to laugh at?? In the film, the stutterer was someone you rooted for and cheered with when he conquered it with performing. But in the show, it felt more like the stutter was on display for the audience to ridicule. Not a good change. Please, if you see this or any other show ever, you’re probably a douche if you laugh at disability on display.
Queen Elizabeth, the role Judi Dench won an Oscar for despite only having like 4 lines and being onscreen for a shorter time than it takes me to tie my shoes, is played more humorous than regal here, which is somewhat off-putting. I don’t know Lizzie the I like I know Lizzie the II, but I’m pretty sure neither of them would be humorous in front of the general public. In front of family and friends, sure, but not in front of poor people. This Queen was written, directed, and acted just a little too familiarly. I want my queens bitchy, stern, and formal, thanks.
My favorite minor character I didn’t even realize was my favorite until the program verified it afterwards. Paul Chahidi, who was the glorious maid in Twelfth Night on Broadway last season (with Mark Rylance, originally at the Globe), played the Geoffrey Rush producer part of Henslowe. Paul Chahidi is superb and I want to see him as the humorous sidekick in pretty much every single play, even those without humorous sidekicks. Rush gave the movie its major memorable line, as he said at various points, to explain how things sort of work themselves out, “It’s a mystery!” and it was adorable, and we liked it, and we loved it. Chahidi’s Henslowe says it once early on and I smiled…but then in Act Two, he started saying it more and more. In the final 20 minutes, I think he said it 4 times. That is too many. That’s the writer’s fault, not Chahidi’s (Paul’s likeability is what saves us from groaning) but that’s something that should have been caught. That overuse and the 9 times we have to listen to Sonnet #18 should have been addressed by editors.
Regardless of these quibbles, the play is overall enjoyable and should make you laugh and cry and laugh and cry some more if you are not a robot. They really should have taken the opportunity to make this a musical and try to elevate it above and beyond the movie, rather than aiming to equal it, but I’ll leave that development to future artists. The story is strong enough without music, I guess. Will and Viola fall in love, Will is totally inspired and writes the genius “Romeo & Juliet” (it’s genius, even if you’re still sick of it from middle school), and Viola has to follow the queen’s and her father’s orders and marry Wessex. This oh this was also much worse than the movie. Wessex is a total shit in both, just a horrible awful man, but at least in the movie he looked like Colin Firth so you didn’t feel toooo badly for Viola. Here he’s just a normal so it’s real sad. Also, her father (whom I don’t think we see in the movie) is an even worse shit. So at least she gets away from him. The maid, the best part of the movie because it’s Imelda Stanton, is just okay here. She kind of milks her “It is a new day!” line to get laughs from the audience when really it should only be the set-up for Viola’s “It is a new world” reply, which is instead tossed aside.
Tom Bateman as Will works unbelievably hard, so hard that the sweat literally pours off of him throughout the show. His hair was soaking wet the entire time, even at stage door. I was like, “I don’t know how you are going to do a second show tonight” and he said “I don’t know either!” which is funny and self-deprecating but then he lit a cigarette and I was like, oh so you want to struggle to keep up, I get it.
So, anyway, no matter how you felt about the movie, this show is worth seeing. It’s not perfect, and like 99% of shows (/movies/television/books/anything), I wish I was able to edit it before it was considered set and finished, but alas, it has a few flaws. Luckily, these flaws won’t keep you from enjoying the show, and at least in the case of Viola’s uncharacteristically husky voice, some of them will help you enjoy it more. Okay now I’m done making fun.
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Hamlet at the Young Vic: What Can’t Cush Jumbo Do?
London’s latest take on the classic Billy Shakes stars a magnetic Cush Jumbo, the first woman I’ve seen in the role and possibly the most natural fit for it. She has stage presence coming out her invisible pores, babies. Hamlet, which I learned at Quizzo a few weeks ago is Shakespeare’s longest play, is about the grumpiest grumpo who ever grumped (well for dern good reason), but Cush gave us the opposite of cushlash and made this super-emo character captivating for the first time in a long time.
This Hamlet is a cool fella in luxurious leisurewear neutrals who is seething with rage at his new uncle-daddy and his uncle-daddy’s new sister-wife who is also our dude’s mommy-aunt. Turns out uncle-daddy killed daddy-brother so he could become king and marry his brother’s widow slash his sister-in-law. It’s a big old mess! Hamlet’s like ‘does no one else realize what has happened? are you all just cool with this? you guys are seeing this right?’ and just kind of goes whaaaat the fuuuuuck until he starts murdering out his revenge. He thought he got his piece of shit uncle first but turns out he actually killed that Polonius guy® and from then on things did not get better for him or anyone else. Polonius, fun fact, was played by Joseph Marcell, Geoffrey the butler from Fresh Prince, and I was very excited to see him and shouted exuberantly so it’s a good thing I was watching from home (see below).
In this version’s attempt at modernizing the tale, the clothes were modern streetwear and they used a lot of guns. I wish people would just do it straight. Sometimes it’s silly. I did absolutely adore the hilarious use of “It Takes Two to Make a Thing Go Right”; that was the funniest theatrical bit I’ve seen in weeks. But to balance it out, the modern techno music used for scene changes, and the weird music interlude with Ophelia dancing around, were big misfires. The staging and set were very stark and bare, which worked for me. I thought the casting was fairly strong all around. Ophelias usually fail to make an impression on me (or anyone?), but I enjoyed Norah Lopez Holden’s take that really showed the nuanced details of a yoot’s life. Ophelia’s primal screaming was so good I wish I could record that and play it on a loop in my neighbor’s window.
The play is all about its enthralling lead though, who put aside the usual intrigue about the title character’s mental health and made it clear that their thirst for vengeance was the only option. Some of Cush’s delivery was surprisingly musical, really leaning into the rhythmic possibilities and making the words fun to listen. I was reminded a few times of Daryl Mitchell doing Sonnet 141 in 10 Things I Hate About You. For some of her lines I was jiving in my head to his unparalleled take on “In faith I do not love thee WITH MINE EEEEEYES/for they in thee a thousand errors NOTE.” Hot take but that’s the best part of that excellent movie.
I recently read Maggie O’Farrell’s book Hamnet (decent but not as good as I was hyped to believe)(much better than her Instructions for a Heatwave though, woof) so I was eager to reexperience Hamlet and try to discern where the grief he was feeling for his son may have come into play. I’m not sure of specifics, but it definitely felt sadder. Whether that’s the book or the enchantment of Cush’s performance, who can say!
In positively thrilling news, the Young Vic has committed to making all of this season’s productions available to watch via livestream for those of us who don’t completely love being coughed on by maskless miscreants. They had four livestream performances through their ‘Best Seat in Your House’ program. I love that they offer several different camera angles to choose from, but the pre-show videos for testing out the different sight lines for each choice all looked the same so we went with Director’s Choice (which is probably the right move regardless?). Since it was streamed during a regular in-person performance, the cameras didn’t get all up in their grills like with the Almeida’s Macbeth but it came across well on the small screen nonetheless. (They also had six performances that were socially distanced instead of being sold at full capacity. A super bravo to little Victor!)
INFORMATION
Apparently time got away from me because this ends tomorrow! Go see it if you are in London!
The show began at 7pm, Act I ended at 8:50pm (thank god I was home that’s too long without a bathroom break), and the show ended at 10:10. The website says the run time is 3 hours 10 minutes, so that’s some muhfuhing commitment to accuracy and I APPRECIATE IT.
Thoughts on: Buyer & Cellar, Off-Broadway
The Barrow Street Theatre’s production of Buyer & Cellar, starring the adorable and talented Michael Urie, honestly had me laughing harder than I did at The Book of Mormon (possibly (definitely) because I already had the BoM score memorized by the time I saw it so I knew all the jokes, but whatever). What a wonderful, low-key gem of a show, with a most impressive star.
I knew beforehand that the show was about a man working as the sole employee in Barbra Streisand’s basement mall, underneath her much-publicized Malibu mansion. Yes, that part is true – BS wrote a design book a few years back chronicling the building of her dream house, which does indeed have a shopping mall in the basement, holding all of BS’s memorabilia in various shoppes. (We know they are ‘shoppes’ and not ‘shops’ because Urie’s character adorably pronounces them ‘shopp-ees’ and jokes that one of the ‘shopp-ees’ is probably a purveyor of excess p’s and e’s.)
What I didn’t know was that this simple, cute concept could be taken to such entertaining heights in this pleasant little show.
I knew beforehand that the show was about a man working as the sole employee in Barbra Streisand’s basement mall, underneath her much-publicized Malibu mansion. Yes, that part is true – BS wrote a design book a few years back chronicling the building of her dream house, which does indeed have a shopping mall in the basement, holding all of BS’s memorabilia in various shoppes. (We know they are ‘shoppes’ and not ‘shops’ because Urie’s character adorably pronounces them ‘shopp-ees’ and jokes that one of the ‘shopp-ees’ is probably a purveyor of excess p’s and e’s.)
What I didn’t know was that this simple, cute concept could be taken to such entertaining heights in this pleasant little show.
Buyer & Cellar is the fictional tale of the employee tasked to work long days in this basement mall/shrine. The character, Alex, waits and waits for his one potential customer – of course, Babs herself – whose only potential purchases are, of course, her own possessions. This premise works because the most ridiculous aspect of the whole thing – that Barbra would have a private basement mall housing all of her memorabilia – is actually the true part! The rest kind of fills itself in naturally: If the mall already exists, why wouldn’t someone work down there? Why wouldn’t a woman who is enough of a character to build this thing and write a book about it also hire someone to treat her like any strange customer in any regular mall and try to sell her things?
Jonathan Tolins’ laugh-out-loud script could probably stand on its own with any number of talented actors in the one-man role, but Michael Urie clearly was born to knock it out of the park. As Alex More, Urie projects a sincere warmth and goodness through his often snarky reminiscences of his encounters with his diva employer. I liked Urie fine on Ugly Betty, recognizing his comedic talents as one must when you watch him, but I wasn’t a huge fan. (Maybe because he was so mean to Betty! And to that boyfriend I liked! The really nice but shlubby one! I loved him.) Aaanyway, that character might have colored my perception of Urie, but man alive if I don’t love him now.
In an endearing preface, Urie as himself discusses Barbra’s actual 2010 design book with the audience to familiarize us. The facts about the book are hilarious. Barbra’s writing, for instance, assumes that the reader knows that Winterthur, the inspiration for the basement mall, is a decorative arts and antiques museum in Delaware. Sure sure.
Urie also explains that he doesn’t do an impersonation of Barbra when he acts out her side of dialogue. However, the little aspects of Barbra’s demeanor that he does evoke are so effective that by the middle you are sold on this choice. The slumped shoulders, the seemingly endless and loose fingers, it works.
One-person shows require truly great writing and acting to succeed at all. Often the most telling test for a show that features encounters between various characters is when the audience forgets that all of these characters are only played by one person. Buyer & Cellar absolutely passes this test: Urie really made me feel the presence of several people up on that tiny stage. At times, I was seized with concern for Barbra, wanting to yell to her that Alex probably meant to say more or less or that she could eat as much froyo as she wanted. And then I’d realize, not only is this fiction, but there is no actress up there even playing Barbra. Equally compelling were Alex’s memories of encounters with his boyfriend Barry, who in the beginning was more excited about Alex’s job working for perhaps the greatest gay icon, but as time progressed turned quickly against Babs, partly from the jealousy of Alex’s developing a relationship that he could have no part of, partly from that omnipresent glee we plebeians derive from hating on celebrities whose privilege we mock with derision yet of course envy. (I think 80% of all internet comments exemplify the latter.) That Alex, Barry, Barbra, Babs’s chief of staff, James Brolin hilariously, and even a French bubble-blowing automaton named Fifi all seemed to share the stage equally and fully is a testament to Urie’s talents.
The audience, clearly full of Barbra fans, was completely won over. The show mocks Barbra while somehow remaining kindhearted. It vilifies her well-known insecurities as superficial interview fodder yet conveys her vulnerability. And still it remains a light, delicious, and hilarious hour and a half that I whole-heartedly recommend experiencing. The producers recently, wisely, decided to extend its limited run indefinitely. My only regret was not waiting afterward to get a pictures with Urie, but I feared in my newfound fangirl state I would start “shopping for throw pillows” on him as Barbra once did. You just must see it!
Jonathan Tolins’ laugh-out-loud script could probably stand on its own with any number of talented actors in the one-man role, but Michael Urie clearly was born to knock it out of the park. As Alex More, Urie projects a sincere warmth and goodness through his often snarky reminiscences of his encounters with his diva employer. I liked Urie fine on Ugly Betty, recognizing his comedic talents as one must when you watch him, but I wasn’t a huge fan. (Maybe because he was so mean to Betty! And to that boyfriend I liked! The really nice but shlubby one! I loved him.) Aaanyway, that character might have colored my perception of Urie, but man alive if I don’t love him now.
In an endearing preface, Urie as himself discusses Barbra’s actual 2010 design book with the audience to familiarize us. The facts about the book are hilarious. Barbra’s writing, for instance, assumes that the reader knows that Winterthur, the inspiration for the basement mall, is a decorative arts and antiques museum in Delaware. Sure sure.
Urie also explains that he doesn’t do an impersonation of Barbra when he acts out her side of dialogue. However, the little aspects of Barbra’s demeanor that he does evoke are so effective that by the middle you are sold on this choice. The slumped shoulders, the seemingly endless and loose fingers, it works.
One-person shows require truly great writing and acting to succeed at all. Often the most telling test for a show that features encounters between various characters is when the audience forgets that all of these characters are only played by one person. Buyer & Cellar absolutely passes this test: Urie really made me feel the presence of several people up on that tiny stage. At times, I was seized with concern for Barbra, wanting to yell to her that Alex probably meant to say more or less or that she could eat as much froyo as she wanted. And then I’d realize, not only is this fiction, but there is no actress up there even playing Barbra. Equally compelling were Alex’s memories of encounters with his boyfriend Barry, who in the beginning was more excited about Alex’s job working for perhaps the greatest gay icon, but as time progressed turned quickly against Babs, partly from the jealousy of Alex’s developing a relationship that he could have no part of, partly from that omnipresent glee we plebeians derive from hating on celebrities whose privilege we mock with derision yet of course envy. (I think 80% of all internet comments exemplify the latter.) That Alex, Barry, Barbra, Babs’s chief of staff, James Brolin hilariously, and even a French bubble-blowing automaton named Fifi all seemed to share the stage equally and fully is a testament to Urie’s talents.
The audience, clearly full of Barbra fans, was completely won over. The show mocks Barbra while somehow remaining kindhearted. It vilifies her well-known insecurities as superficial interview fodder yet conveys her vulnerability. And still it remains a light, delicious, and hilarious hour and a half that I whole-heartedly recommend experiencing. The producers recently, wisely, decided to extend its limited run indefinitely. My only regret was not waiting afterward to get a pictures with Urie, but I feared in my newfound fangirl state I would start “shopping for throw pillows” on him as Barbra once did. You just must see it!
