Michael Urie talks playing Barbra Streisand in ‘Buyer & Cellar’: ‘It wouldn’t be fair for her to watch it!’

As Off Broadway theatre smash Buyer & Cellar comes to London, the one-man show’s star, Michael Urie (aka Ugly Betty’s Marc St. James), has talked to Attitude about channeling the show’s subject, one Ms Barbra Streisand.

The play tells the fictional story of a man who gets a job working in the very real street of underground shops Barbra Streisand had built under her Malibu home, with Michael playing a range of characters, including Babs herself. After receiving rave reviews in New York for the comedy drama is currently showing at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory Theatre until May 2.

“The more you know about Barbra, the more insight you’ll have to the play and the more tidbits you’ll get from the play, but it very much stands on its own,” Michael says. “I know there have been young people who’ve come to see the play who didn’t know who she was at all, who hadn’t even heard of Barbra Streisand – can you believe it – and they still really enjoy it, because [Jon [Tolins, the show’s writer] wonderfully paints a picture of her.

“I mean, she’s famous, she’s rich – very rich – and she built a mall in her basement, that’s all you need to know! I play her in the show but I don’t put on a putty nose or a wig or fingernails or anything liked that, I really just embody her.”

But while many of Barbra’s friends and contemporaries have come to see him channel the legendary Funny Girl star during the show’s US run, the 36-year-old says it wouldn’t be “fair” for the 72-year-old to see it with a public audience, despite the rave reviews the show’s received.

“I think she would have a good time – if she was surrounded by her friends!” he laughs “I don’t think it would be fair for her to watch it with an audience of regular people, because the play… I don’t think the play is mean – there’s nothing false, there’s nothing that’s not true: Everything that Jon writes is from something, he bases it all on truth, but I think that the hard part for her would be to hear the audience laugh, because the audience laughing is what sort of makes it come across as… that’s what would hurt her feelings.

“I would never want that, I would never want that at all! If she was there it would feel like a roast, and I don’t think that’s fair. Someone agrees to a roast. And a roast is with people you know, who you’ve asked to come and roast you. So if I was asked to come and do the play for her and a group of her friends, I think that would be very different, I think that would work!”

He adds: It’s historical fiction about someone who’s still alive, so if she was in the room… Let’s just say I’m glad she’s not been to see it with an audience!”

Back in January, Urie criticised Billy Crystal’s controversial comments about gay sex on television, telling him to “change the channel”.

You can see Buyer & Cellar at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory until May 2. menierchocolatefactory.com

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