BUYER &CELLARby jonathan tolins

directed by wendy dann

RACHEL LAMPERT, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

A Theatergoer’s ResourceWritten by Melyssa Hall

Please Return Guide to Lobby When Finished

AUDIENCE GUIDE

Contents: Meet the Playwright 2 / Barbra’s Passion for Design 4 / Novelty Architecture 5 / Utopia 6 /

Diva Worship 7 / Some (More) “Notes About Camp” 7 / “Please Call Me Barbra” 8 /

What Does Barbra Have to Say About All This? 10 / Conversation Starters 10 / Sources 11

2

Meet the PL AYWRIGHTJonathan Tolins interview with fellow playwright, Adam Szymkowicz (2013)

3

Q:A:

Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.

I remember visiting my grandparents in Florida when I was about ten years old. There was a party in the “rec room” of their building and I somehow ended up standing on a table telling everyone a joke. I think it was a joke that I stole from Gabe Kaplan on Welcome Back, Kotter! on TV. The joke was about an old person dying – a risky choice for the assembled – but I got huge laughs. Doing one’s best to delight middle-aged Jews is good training for a playwright in New York.

Q:A:

Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

It’s a cliché, but Chekhov. I did props for a production of Uncle Vanya at Williamstown in 1984 and I watched the show and cried every night. Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus also had a big influence on me. I loved how theatrical it was and how passionate the language was. One more pretentious mention: I love the way Ibsen forces the audience to grapple with impossible questions, leaving them no easy way to turn.

Q:A:

What kind of theater excites you?

Basically, I love theater that feels like a heightened version of life. I like plays where you can feel a lively intelligence in the air, where the audience is totally engaged and waiting for the next line, the next turn of the plot, the next surprise to be revealed. I also think everything should have laughs, because life does.

Q:A:

What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

Write for yourself. Buyer & Cellar looks to be the most successful play I’ve written and it’s because I didn’t write it for the marketplace. I wrote it for me, and maybe for my closest friends. People are looking for an authentic voice in the theater, for someone to tell it like it is as they see it. The more you stick to what makes you happy, the better your play will be.

Q:A:

Tell me about Buyer & Cellar.

Buyer & Cellar is a play that began as a short comic essay I submitted to The New Yorker that got rejected. A friend suggested I write it as a one-man-show and I thought that could be a good idea. The play stems from the fact that Barbra Streisand put out a book in 2010 about her house in Malibu, and in it she revealed that she built a street of shops in her basement to house her various collections and memorabilia. I thought it would be funny if someone had to work down there and “greet the customer” whenever she came down. That silly notion became the play. I did some research and studied the book and tried to make this patently absurd situation as real as possible. It was important to me to write a play, not a sketch. I wanted it to be about the relationship that forms between these two people in vastly different stations in life.

Q:A:

If you could change one thing about the-ater, what would it be?

I usually complain about theater criticism, but right now I have a show that has gotten mostly good reviews so I’d better keep my mouth shut. I don’t know one thing I would change, per se, but I wish the theater were a more welcoming place and that the economics didn’t make getting a new play on so tough. Few people realize that many important non-profit theaters in New York will only consider a new play that has a star and/or brings with it enhancement money from commercial producers. That puts a heavy burden on a playwright and it limits what kind of theater the regular audience of playgoers sees.

“I think everything should have laughs, because life does.”

4

PASSION FOR DESIGN

Barbra’s

“And we might as well get one thing out of the way right now. There may be more details about paneling and paint in this book than you could have imagined or ever wanted to know. If you don’t want to read about it, I understand. Just look at the pictures. But I was obsessed. You have to understand something. I love details. As the architect Mies van der Rohe once said, ‘God is in the details.”- Barbra Streisand, My Passion for Design

5

In 2010 Viking Press published Barbra Streisand’s first book, My Passion for Design. It’s a beautiful, glossy-paged tome about, “excess, the pursuit of excellence, and how, when you come from no place at all and claim the world’s attention after catapulting yourself past your ‘nowhere’ beginnings, scale and prudence are not really part of your equation” (The New Yorker). As Alex notes in the play, My Passion for Design is “aspirational”. It’s not a how-to guide for building your own luxury estate; it holds Barbra’s project up as an example and invites us to imagine the home we would make for ourselves if we had the resources and assiduity of Barbra Streisand.

The book details the construction of Barbra’s sumptuous Malibu estate. There are three main structures on her property: the millhouse, the barn, and the main house, all surrounded by landscaping that, according to Barbra, was “carefully planned to look natural”. Barbra lives only in the main house. The mill house was the first structure completed and she used it as a studio for designing the rest of the estate. The barn houses the basement mall, where most of Buyer & Cellar takes place.

Barbra’s voice is unmistakable throughout the volume - she moves easily from the death of her father, to gushing about her adorable dog, Sammy, to talking about the inspiration for her unique “napping room”: the logistics of constructing a recording studio in the space, as she had originally intended, gave her a headache. So, in charming Barbra Streisand fashion, she decided she’d “rather take a nap”.

NOVELTY ARCHITECTURE

“One night with us is all it takes to realize everything’s sexier in Paris… Las Vegas’ sexiest rooms await.” So boasts the website for the Paris Hotel – located, not in Paris, France, but in Las Vegas, Nevada. The website also declares the hotel will transport you “to the City of Lights with all the same passion, excitement, and ambiance of Europe’s most romantic city, with all the excitement of the entertainment capital of the world.” Some comfortable rooms, live music and a replica of the Eiffel Tower and you might as well be in Paris, right? …Right?

It’s difficult to tell if this kind of architecture is delightfully campy, or innocuous kitsch, a great vacation spot, or something altogether more sinister – perhaps it is a manifestation of what our culture has come to. Maybe we can no longer tell the difference between authentic experience and imitation? Maybe we no longer care to?

Regardless of what it means, however, novelty architecture (also called mimetic or programmatic architecture), exists. Buildings that fall under this category are either shaped like what they are (an ice cream shop shaped like an ice cream cone), or they imitate a pre-existing landmark like a child might imitate his father by following him around Wegmans with a miniature shopping cart – innocently enough, but without a full understanding of what grocery shopping really means. In Barbra’s case, the structures on her estate are themselves extremely expensive and well-curated pieces of novelty architecture based on the soundstage set of Summerstock starring Judy Garland.

The fascination with entertainment and fast fun (and money) in Las Vegas and California makes these areas prime locations for novelty architecture. Alex tours us through some of the more famous novelty spots during the play:

continue to next page

6

THE PARIS HOTEL LAS VEGAS

A themed luxury hotel that features a half-scale replica of the Eiffel Tower, a casino, a swimming pool and 1,200 seat theater. The main hotel’s architecture suggests the Paris Opera House and the Louvre.

“Utopia” is a word coined by Sir Thomas More and is the title of his his book, published in 1516, about an ideal society. It is a combination of two Greek words, “outopia” (no-where) and “eutopia” (a good place). Since More, the concept has been examined by scholars, poets, social scientists, and artists of all kinds. The body of work concerning utopian themes comes to somewhere between three and five thousand published texts. More hit on something that resonates through the ages: the human desire to create a beautiful, perfect place where order and happiness prevail. Of course, the etymology of the word reveals the paradox: Utopia is a good place that is nowhere - it does not exist.

It’s been many years since 1516, but we’re still looking. In contemporary times we create and enjoy spaces that attempt utopia on a daily basis. One place we look for utopia is where we shop. Isn’t that part of the Ithaca Farmer’s Market, or Wegmans, or even the Commons? We don’t just go to these spaces to spend money; we go because of the smells, the sounds, the colors, the people, the sense of peace – we go for the experience of being there.

In Buyer & Cellar Alex mentions The Grove, a luxury shopping center in California. He says outright that he can’t afford anything they sell there, but he goes because he likes being there, like Holly Golightly wandering around Tiffany’s.

We recognize these spaces are not “real”, but we love them anyway because they represent a reality we wish were true. If only everything could be that calm, well curated, locally sourced and beautiful. If only Disneyland’s Main Street U.S.A. were an actual time machine, if only we could really be in Paris when we visit the Paris Hotel in LA. But there is always a gap between perfection and reality. Deep down we know we’re never going bridge it, but the truly brave among us try anyway.

It might be tempting to write Barbra Streisand off as a narcissistic perfectionist with too much money and way too much house, but she is reaching for her version of perfect. Most of us can’t afford to build our own luxury reality, but thank you, Barbra, for putting the fantasy in our heads.

THE FORUM AT CEASAR’S PALACE LAS VEGAS

A grand indoor shopping mall featuring over 160 specialty shops and restaurants. The mall is designed to feel like one is shopping for Gucci bags along the streets of Ancient Rome.

DISNEYLAND ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA

The legendary amusement park. Main Street, U.S.A. is “where turn-of-the-century architecture and transportation bring the small-town Middle America of the early 1900s to life,” according to the website. The Matterhorn is a bobsled ride at Disneyland located on a 147 foot tall “mountain” styled after the peak in Switzerland. Two Disneyland guests have lost their lives on the ride, thrown onto the tracks when their seatbelts failed or were unbuckled.

Novelty Architecture continued

UTOPIAEven if we’re not involved in politics or city planning, we’re all just struggling to make a perfect little world to fit our life into. To design it and cast it with the right people. It’s why we do theater and found religions and watch HGTV. We’re all “aspirational”. Buyer & Cellar

7

Diva WORSHIP

Some (More) “NOTES ON CAMP”

Like any culture, gay culture comes with its own stories, myths, and pathos. One aspect particular to gay culture is “diva worship”, the passionate and almost fetishistic devotion to female Hollywood stars. There are two traits in women worthy of this worshipful devotion - extreme weakness or extreme strength and, in most cases, divas are a paradox of power and vulnerability.

To take two examples: Judy Garland, the doe-eyed star of The Wizard of Oz who struggled with substance abuse and depression, is a much-loved victim and earned her place on the diva shrine by being so famous and still so vulnerable. On the opposite side of the spectrum is Barbra Streisand, whose famed tenacity, uncompromising commitment to an artistic vision and huge talent have rendered her a powerhouse of glamour and gusto while her troubled and impoverished childhood gain her our sympathy.

Diva worship clings to the myth of the woman, not the woman herself. The divas we worship are not “real people” - they are an amalgamation of the stories surrounding their rise to fame, their sense of style, their talents, and their public personas blended with the personal tragedies of their pasts. Diva worship requires us to be inspired by the strength of the woman, sympathetic to her weaknesses and guilefully aware of the artifice that creates her overblown personality. Whether a diva is a “good” or a “bad” person in so-called “real life” doesn’t really factor into our appreciation of her. A moral assessment would be out of place. Divas aren’t really real. Divas are inconvenient. They are exacting. They are often troubled. However, they are always - in their own way - perfectly charming. Their powerful personalities draw us in and we are captivated by their every gesture.

Some have called Streisand’s book “narcissistic”, and maybe it is. But isn’t there something great about the whole thing? The whole project is so ridiculously huge and expensive, it’s easy to roll our eyes at it, but admittedly, there’s something about it we enjoy. We enjoy the campiness of it all. The big personality, the unlimited budget, the huge dream.

“Camp” is an aesthetic sensibility that celebrates what some might call “bad art”. Most art is judged based on an understanding of the artist’s intent and an assessment of whether or not she achieved her goals. Camp inverts or ignores that aesthetic framework and is more interested in how outlandish the ambition is. Susan Sontag, in her seminal essay, “Notes on Camp”, says, “The hallmark of camp is the spirit of extravagance.” Camp is when an artist is wholly and seriously committed to an idea that is completely preposterous. If the execution of the idea fails, so much the better for camp taste! Sontag again: “Something is good not because it is achieved, but because another kind of truth about the human situation, another experience of what it is to be human - in short, another

valid sensibility - is being revealed.” Camp wants to enjoy all of humanity’s whacky attempts at making sense of itself and it does not judge the process.

This sensibility invites us to look at Barbra Streisand in a different way. Yes, she built a giant New England farmhouse on her Malibu estate, constructed a house/barn from scratch that she doesn’t live in, and put a shopping mall in her basement… AND, she was likely a huge pain in the you-know-what to everyone who provided labor to complete the project. And then she wrote a huge, glossy book about the whole process. However, she did it in an attempt to create a space where everything is beautiful and the curtains always match For that, we thank her, because we get to enjoy her extravagance from afar.

It’s absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious. -Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan

“The hallmark of camp is the spirit of extravagance.”

- Susan Sontag

8

PleaseCALL ME BARBRA

9

Perhaps one of the most highly decorated, celebrated and divisive celebrities of our time, Barbra Streisand is the only artist ever to receive Oscar, Tony, Emmy, Grammy, Directors Guild of America, Golden Globe, National Medal of Arts and Peabody Awards and France’s Légion d’Honneur as well as the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award. She is also the first female film director to receive the Kennedy Center Honors.

Streisand was born on April 24, 1942 in Brooklyn to Diana Rosen and Emanuel Streisand. Her father died when she was only 15 months old and this loss had a significant impact on her artistic and emotional life. Her mother remarried in 1949 to Louis Kind, who Barbra felt was an emotionally abusive and unsupportive stepfather.

According to stories she’s told the press, Streisand’s childhood was not a happy one. Her family was poor and her mother frequently degraded her sense of self-worth. Despite redefining female beauty as she rose to the top in Hollywood, Barbra was never told she was pretty when she was young and this perceived flaw stuck with her throughout her wildly successful entertainment career.

Her career began when she moved to New York City after graduating high school. She was persuaded to audition for a gig singing at a nightclub, and despite not having taken any voice lessons, she got the job and began her career as a cabaret singer. It was during this time that she dropped the second ‘a’ from Barbara – her version of a stage name. She didn’t feel right about changing her name completely.

Her Broadway debut was in 1962 with I Can Get It For You Wholesale, for which she won the New York Drama Critics Award and received a Tony nomination. After that was the famous Funny Girl (1964) on Broadway. Streisand was nominated for a Tony in 1964 for her portrayal of Fanny Brice in the musical and she went on to play Fanny in the film version in 1968, her big screen debut and her first Academy Award.

Simultaneous to her career as an actress, Streisand developed a booming music recording career. Her website states the following:

She is now also the only recording artist or group to achieve number one albums in each of six consecutive decades. She has a total of ten. After the artist earned her latest Number One for “Partners” on September 22, 2014, Billboard summed up Barbra Streisand’s recording achievements…

“Barbra Streisand Makes History with “Partners,” Becoming Only Recording Artist with Number One Albums in Six Consecutive Decades - It’s official - Barbra Streisand’s ‘Partners’ has entered the Billboard 200 chart at number one, making her the only recording artist in history to have a number one release in six consecutive decades. Ms. Streisand is the best-selling female recording artist in history. She is the only woman to make the All-Time Top 10 Best Selling Artists list. She also now has the longest span of number one albums in history; just under 50 years. She first landed at the top of the chart in October 1964 with ‘People.’”

The Grammy-nominated “Partners,” Billboard confirmed, is Ms. Streisand’s 33rd album to make it into the Top 10 on the US charts. She is the only female artist to have achieved that milestone, with her new triumph tying her with Frank Sinatra for second with only the Rolling Stones ahead of them.

Streisand has also proven to be a tenacious and successful director and producer, roles she seems to enjoy filling very much. She has several directing a producing credits to her name, but perhaps the most notable is her 1983 film, Yentl.

With this film, she became the first woman ever to produce, direct, write and star in a major motion picture. Yentl, earned her five Oscar nominations and also brought her Golden Globes for both Best Director and Best Picture.

Stories of Streisand’s love affairs are varied and fantastic. She was romantically involved with several of her leading men and has been married twice. She married Elliot Gould in 1963 and they had one child together, Jason. She divorced Gould after eight years of marriage and remarried in 1998, this time to actor, James Brolin. Barbra Streisand is now 73 years old and lives on her estate in Malibu. There are rumors that she is currently at work on her memoirs.

She’s a complicated fusion of self-confidence and self-doubt.” –Mike Wallace, interview for 60 Minutes (1991)

10

What does BARBRA HAVE TO SAY ABOUT ALL OF THIS?“Everybody has an opinion about me; nobody’s neutral,” says Tolins’ Barbra in Buyer & Cellar. But does the star have anything to say about the piece of theater that uses her home and her legendary personality as its inspiration? It appears the diva has remained silent on the subject. Tolins, in an article for The New York Times, wrote to Barbra instead:

“Hi, Barbra. We met once 20 years ago, when you came to see a play I wrote. You almost bought the movie rights, but then you didn’t. Anyway, thank you for inspiring “Buyer & Cellar” and for your sense of humor. People love you in the play, and many of them go home and order copies of your book. I hear that friends of yours have seen the show and told you it’s not offensive. Trust them. But if you do plan to come, don’t tell me, because I’d plotz. (Did I mention I was born in Brooklyn, too?)

Oh, and you have to admit, there’s something kind of funny about a mall in a basement.”

Conversation STARTERSHOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR VERSION OF UTOPIA?

WHO IS THE MOST FAMOUS PERSON YOU HAVE EVER MET? WHAT WAS IT LIKE?

WHO IS THE STRONGEST, MOST FABULOUS WOMAN IN YOUR LIFE?

WHAT FLIMS/ART/TELEVISION SHOWS DO YOU LOVE TO HATE?

WHAT IS YOUR MOST TREASURED OBJECT?

11

Sources

Audience guide design and formatting by Annie Dailey

“About The Forum Shops at Caesars® - A Shopping Center in Las Vegas, NV - A Simon Property.” Simon - Official Website. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Sept. 2015. <http://www.simon.com/mall/the-forum-shops-at-caesars/about>.

Als, Hilton. “Barbra Follows the Light - The New Yorker.” The New Yorker. N.p., 11 Feb. 2011. Web. 01 Sept. 2015. <http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/barbra-follows-the-light>.

“Barbra Streisand.” The Official Site of Barbra Streisand. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Sept. 2015. <http://www.barbrastreisand.com/us/biography>.

“I Interview Playwrights Part 575: Jonathan Tolins.” Adam Szymkowicz. Blogspot, 24 Apr. 2014. Web. 01 Sept. 2015. <http://aszym.blogspot.com/2013/04/i-interview-playwrights-part-575.html>.

Kates, Steven M. “Camp As Cultural Capital: Further Elaboration Of A Consumption Taste.” Advances In Consumer Research 28.1 (2001): 334-339.LGBT Life with Full Text. Web. 21 Aug. 2015.

Maclaran, Pauline. “The Center Cannot Hold: Consuming the Utopian Marketplace.” Journal of Consumer Research 32.2 (2005): 311-23. JSTOR. Web. 01 Sept. 2015.

“Main Street, U.S.A.” Disneyland. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Sept. 2015. <https://disneyland.disney.go.com/au/disneyland/main-street-usa/>.

“Matterhorn Bobsleds.” Disneyland. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Sept. 2015. <https://disneyland.disney.go.com/attractions/disneyland/matterhorn-bobsleds/>.

“Paris Las Vegas Hotel and Casino.” Paris Las Vegas Hotel and Casino - Official Website. N.p., n.d. Wed. 01 Sept. 2015. <https://www.caesars.com/paris-las-vegas>.

“Snopes.com: Disneyland Deaths.” Snopes.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Sept. 2015. <http://www.snopes.com/disney/parks/deaths.asp>.

Tolins, Jonathan. “Shopping for Ideas in a Star’s Basement.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 22 June 2013. Web. 01 Sept. 2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/theater/a-playwright-inspired-by-barbra-streisands-home.html?_r=0>.

Please Return Guide to Lobby When Finished

TICKETS ON SALE NOW!

ANGEL MOORE *

DIRECTED BY NICOLE A. WATSON**

AGES 14+

607.272.0570 · WWW.KITCHENTHEATRE.ORG

LANDON WOODSON *

by Katori Hall

“ Inventive and startlingly moving ”

**Member SDC*Member AEA

- The Times, London

COMING UP NEXT...

NICOLE A. WATSON **