Photo via Visit Milwaukee - visitmilwaukee.org
Buyer and Cellar at Renaissance Theaterworks
Imagine, if you will, the Milwaukee Public Museum’s Streets of Old Milwaukee. Now imagine that array of shops (and shoppes) filled with Barbra Streisand’s collection of dresses, dolls, tchotchkes and other sundries in the cellar of her Malibu mansion. And now imagine you’ve been hired by the Diva herself to manage the shops (and shoppes) … and you’re gay (of course). That is the premise of Buyer & Cellar, a 2013 one-(gay) man comedy by Jonathan Tolins that opens March 21 and runs through April 13 at Renaissance Theaterworks (RTW).
RTW’s 32nd season’s final offering is a fictionalized tale based on Streisands’s 2010 book My Passion for Design, in which she describes her personal basement shopping mall. I had the unique pleasure (and honor) of having a conversation about the production with both director Ray Jivoff and actor Doug Clemons during a recent rehearsal at Renaissance. Insightful? Let me tell you …
How “Buyer & Cellar” came to be on the Renaissance marquee is a tale unto itself. Doug Clemons discovered Tolins’ work in 2017 when a friend saw a production in Green Bay and told him “You need to play this part!” That was the part of Alex More, the gay guy, of course. Whereupon, Clemons, while admitting little knowledge of the Streisand as icon phenomenon at the time, immersed himself in Streisand’s aforementioned tome in which she devotes a richly illustrated chapter (with her own photographs, of course) to her cellar shopping mall, became determined to play the role of Alex one way or the other. He shopped the play to various directors and theaters.
Streisand Fandom
Eventually, he reached out to Suzan Fete, the Renaissance Theaterworks’ artistic director, who embraced to idea, saying, “I’d love to do this play.” Fete called the respected director and actor Ray Jivoff. “I was reading Streisand’s biography and listening to the soundtrack of Yentl when Suzan called,” said Jivoff, an obvious Streisand fan. The rest is history, as they say.
At first this may seem incongruous to the Renaissance mission of “Theater by Women for Everyone!” But, in fact, although the play is written by a man and performed by a man, the work focuses on one of entertainment’s most successful and pivotal women whose rise to fame was in part (some might say, in great part) propelled by her gay following. Clemons mentioned the gay impact on any diva, but in particular Streisand, saying “who Barbra Streisand is and how she looks is a result of gay influence. She is unwavering in her purpose in not aligning with (straight) men’s expectations.”
Clemons embrace of the role of Alex (the lead of about 10 characters he portrays) also entailed developing a relationship to Streisand and her fans. Like Alex, Clemons was not a Streisand devotee but, through his conversations with her, he finds himself. “The character is right on the money for me. He’s always on the receiving end of relationships. Through his relationship with Barbra, Alex learns to stand up for himself.”
That lesson is portrayed in Alex’s relationship with his boyfriend, Barry, who happens to be a diehard Barbra fan. “The dynamics of celebrity, divadom, wealth and material things, ultimately reflect our relationships to idols and to the people in our lives,” Clemons said, describing the play’s messaging but also hinting at the dramatic twists and turns of the play itself..
Jivoff added to that thought, reflecting on Streisand’s impact on his own life and empowerment. “It’s about self, and control, and about having the courage to get what you want and finally realizing, like Streisand, that the power to accomplish that is in oneself.”
Buyer & Cellar opens with a pay-what-you-choose preview on Friday, March 21 and runs through April 13. Among other themed performances, a dedicated Pride Night takes place on Friday, March 28.
