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For the one-man "Buyer & Cellar," in which Aaron Swenson will portray seven characters, including the iconic Barbra Streisand, the Utah-based actor has found himself conducting a kind of pop-cultural archaeology as he unpeels the layers in his press interviews and movies.
He's not doing an impersonation, says Swenson in one of the lines of the play's main character, a fictional out-of-work actor named Alex More, whom Streisand has hired to dust her collections on display in a mall she had built in the basement of her Malibu compound.
Instead, the actor just is her and lets the audience fill in the rest. So how do you be Barbra? "She's hands," says Swenson of the iconic celebrity who is the biggest challenge among the play's characters. "She's fingernails. She's vocal cadence. She's a vocal chameleon. She's worked so hard at leaving Brooklyn behind, and so that's an interesting thing to play with in the voice, as well."
The Pygmalion Productions show opens Friday, Nov. 6, and plays weekends through Nov. 21 at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center's black-box theater.
An unusual coincidence is that the local production is one of two one-man shows on the boards this week in Salt Lake City, along with Michael Milligan's touring "Mercy Killers." The UtahPresents show plays Friday, Nov. 6, at the Huntsman Cancer Institute's Eccles Auditorium.
Both shows pose provocative questions, but couldn't be more different in subject matter and storytelling style. The contrast speaks to the elasticity of this streamlined theatrical genre, which simply demands tour de force performances from its actors.
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"Buyer & Cellar" • Jonathan Tolins' play features Swanson embodying multiple characters — that is, conversing, listening and then reacting with only himself as a scene partner.
"He's an actor who is very capable of making those subtle changes that make it very clear he's a different person," says director Teresa Sanderson, who championed the play and drafted Swanson for the role. He's a local actor noted for three fiercely original performances as the main character in Plan-B Theatre productions of "Hedwig and the Angry Inch." "He's amazing to watch."
Michael Urie, known for his turn on ABC's "Ugly Betty," originated the role, which debuted off-off Broadway and then moved to an off-Broadway theater in 2013, before taking off on a five-city tour in 2014.
Tolins has said his play was inspired by Streisand's 2010 publication of a 300-page, $60 art book, "My Passion for Design," that detailed the four buildings — a main house, Grandma's house, a mill house and a barn — she had built on her 3-acre Malibu ocean-front compound.
The book "represents a veritable Everest in the Himalayan peaks of unconditional self-love," thanks to the introduction's frequent use of the words "I," "me," "my" and "mine," one Philadelphia writer opined in a review of "Buyer & Cellar."
Besides artificial streams and a lovely rose garden, Streisand's book features photographs of the old-timey shops in the basement of her barn. "I have a lot of stuff, and instead of storing it just in a basement, why not make a street of shops that would house these things?" she told O magazine at the book's publication.
The premise is preposterous, More tells the audience early in the play, even if the story is fictional. "You know that, right?" the actor asks.
Swanson calls the show "funny and honest and sharp and weird," the kind of modern fairy tale "that almost could have happened."
He terms the show's portrayal of Streisand as "canny."
"Every genuine emotion that she feels, as written in this show, is only communicated as part of a larger agenda," the actor says. "She had made certain choices to paralyze her face. In her public persona, she has streamlined herself to something that is camera ready."
The play's themes, about celebrity and artifice and ambition and aspiration, might seem like a frothy soufflé. But just like making that airy dish, "it takes a lot of muscle to keep that lightness in the piece," Swenson says. "And when it hits home, it's genuine. It's a real piece of theater, like her career, not just a parlor trick."
The underemployed character at the center of the story serves as every actor's doppelgänger. Swanson, 37, reared in Anchorage, Alaska, recently finished a theater studies degree from the University of Utah and holds a more-than-full-time day job as wardrobe supervisor at Pioneer Theatre Company. Most recently in the spotlight were his witty, color-shocked costume designs for PTC's concert staging of "The Rocky Horror Show."
In contrast to Streisand's diva-esque perfectionism, Swenson is artistically humble enough to want to acknowledge everyone — front and backstage — who makes a one-actor performance possible.
Sanderson says "Buyer & Cellar" poses questions about truth and the price of fame. "It's such a universal play in some ways," she says. "We've all had that $1,400 bill that we can't afford to play, like Alex does. And we all understand how important a relationship is."
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"Mercy Killers" • Even the title of Milligan's play raises provocative questions about end-of-life decisions that future doctors will have to negotiate.
"It's such a great example of story, and medicine is about story," says Gretchen Case, an assistant professor in the U. medical school's division of medical ethics and humanities. Case invited Milligan to perform the work in the "Layers of Medicine" course for first- and second-year med students she teaches with Karly Pippitt, of the department of family and preventative medicine.
Milligan, who has performed on Broadway as well as at the Utah Shakespeare Festival, wrote the play and portrays Joe, a self-reliant auto repairman who is propelled to explain how his wife's cancer treatment has ripped apart the couple's lives in unexpected ways.
The actor says performing the play throughout the country for health-care providers, as well as general audiences, has given him an opportunity to use his art to talk about important issues. "As an actor, you spend a lot of time waiting by the phone for someone to invite you to the party," he says.
Milligan began writing the piece in 2012 after witnessing the trauma of medical crises through the experiences of his partner and a former close friend from drama school. Also part of the mix was when Milligan suffered through the pain of kidney stones during a brief gap in his own medical coverage.
The physical pain was one thing, but he says he suffered an additional bout of emotional angst at not knowing where his medical care would come from.
He funneled those experiences into his character, who "has taken responsibility for everything, and then he finds himself in a situation where that isn't enough, and he feels betrayed by the system," Milligan says.
Reviewers have lauded Milligan's deeply emotional performance, terming his subject matter bracing and provocative.
facebook.com/ellen.weist —
'Buyer & Cellar'
Aaron Swenson takes on the challenge of Jonathan Tolins' one-man play grounded by the guy who tends Barbra Streisand's basement mall.
When • Nov. 6-21; Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m.; additional matinee at 2 p.m. Nov. 21
Where • Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center's black-box theater, 138 W. 300 South, Salt Lake City
Tickets • $20; 801-355-2787 or arttix.org
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'Mercy Killers'
UtahPresents presents Michael Milligan's touring show, directed by Tom Oppenheim, about the aftermath of a medical catastrophe.
When • Friday, Nov. 6, 7 p.m., with a post-show talkback
Where • Huntsman Cancer Institute's Eccles Auditorium, 2000 Circle of Hope Drive, Salt Lake City
Tickets • $20 ($5 for University of Utah students; $10 for other students and youth 18 and younger); at 801-581-7100 or utahpresents.org