Review: Let the BUYER & CELLAR Beware

Jonathan Tolins' BUYER AND CELLAR is being performed at Downstage, which is appropriately a cellar, at 2d Story Theater in Warren, RI. I have to admit I have been putting off writing this review. In this eighty-minute one-man show directed by the estimable Lara Hakeem and featuring the multi-talented Kevin Broccoli as Alex Moore, a struggling actor recently fired from Disneyland for failing to stay in character, takes a job working in an underground mall beneath the home of Barbra Streisand. Did I say he plays a struggling actor? That is only partially correct: moving effortlessly from persona to persona, Broccoli also becomes Alex's lover, Streisand's secretary, James Brolin and Streisand herself. BUYER AND CELLAR really seemed to be hitting its stride when Alex and Streisand (Broccoli v. Broccoli) meet in one of the shops in the subterranean private mall and conduct a lengthy negotiation of the absurd, haggling over the price of a doll she already owns. At this point, BUYER AND CELLAR is laugh out loud funny. Would that it had stayed that way.

Unfortunately, Tolins took his play on a path toward the poignant and missed it. Tolins does not seem to like her very much, and it shows. Poor Barbra: how sad it is to be super rich and yet feel incomplete because she never "got the love that every child ought to get." (Officer Krupke, lyric by Stephen Sondheim, WEST SIDE STORY). Though the play runs for only eighty minutes and Broccoli's performance bravura, I found myself checking my watch (in fairness to the company, I must point out that the Patriots were playing the Cowboys right after this show, so it's possible that some of this is my fault, but I don't think so-I had plenty of time.). I cared much more about Alex and Barbra, and learned more about them, when Broccoli was making me laugh than when Tolins was plumbing the depths of her psyche.

Max Ponticelli's minimalist set consisted of a white wingback chair stage left, a couple of similarly white straight back chairs and a small table stage right, and a twenty by thirty foot white sheet as a backdrop, on which the occasional photo of Streisand or her co-stars were displayed. I think the proceedings might have benefitted from a more liberal use of the screen, maybe to give us an image of the doll or the other paraphernalia in the mall.

BUYER AND CELLAR by Jonathan Tolins runs Downstage at 2nd Story Theater, 28 Market St. in Warren, RI until October 25. Performances are 7:30 on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and Sunday at 2:30. Tickets are $30.00, $20.00 for those twenty-one and under, and $10.00 for those who had the foresight to attend a preview performance. The box office can be reached by phone at 401 247 4200 or on-line at www.2ndstorytheatre.com. The theater is wheelchair accessible and has a beautiful accessible bathroom.

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