To enjoy this one-man US import you need three things: a fetishistic fascination with Barbra Streisand, total immersion in showbiz and a love of high camp. If you possess all those qualities, you may have a good time.
Apparently it is a matter of fact, recorded in a book called My Passion for Design, that Streisand has created a complete shopping mall in the basement of her Malibu home. The premise of Jonathan Tolins’s fantasy is that an out-of-work actor, Alex Moore, is employed to service this subterranean collection of shops housing antiques, dolls and dresses. In the process he gets dangerously friendly with the celebrated star.
But even if Tolins manages to spin out a slender idea for 100 minutes, what strikes me is the show’s oddly split-level approach to Streisand: veneration of a showbiz goddess is combined with a cascade of bitchiness, largely channelled through Alex’s boyfriend, attacking her on the grounds of her age, looks and alleged control-freakery. The reduction of everything to the level of showbiz is perfectly epitomised by Alex’s recollection of his first encounter with Streisand: “It was little me against the tank in Tiananmen Square.” Hardly, I’d have thought, the most apt comparison.
Michael Urie, best known here for Ugly Betty, performs all this with merciless vivacity. He rushes about the stage evoking every character, from the huskily authoritative Streisand to her stolid husband, James Brolin, and the hero’s head-tossing, vindictive boyfriend. You have to admire Urie’s relentless energy and his capacity to make you believe in the reality of this elaborate fiction. But it strikes me as a specifically New York kind of show, which depends simultaneously on an insane worship of stars and the desire to grind them into the dust.
• Until 2 May. Venue: Menier Chocolate Factory, London. Buy tickets from theguardianboxoffice.com or call on 0330 333 6906.
