By Katherine Karlson
To borrow a retailing metaphor, BLAST will offer a “Blue Light Special” when the one-man show Buyer & Cellar debuts Thursday (April 7). The award-winning play by Jonathan Tolins stars local funnyman Josh Wallenstein as a struggling L.A. actor who lands an unlikely gig in a megastar’s Malibu home emporium.
Described as “an outrageous comedy about the price of fame, the cost of thingsand the oddest of jobs”, Buyer & Cellar is the first offering of a one-person play on the Cider Mill Stage.
“It’s the part of our spring season that will challenge the audience,” said director Rob Egan.
While the play’s background is real in that cultural icon Barbra Streisand did write a book, My Passion for Design, that includes a description of the “mall” she built in her basement, the story told in Buyer & Cellar is pure fiction. Wallenstein portrays a thespian-turned-sales associate in the Divine Miss Bee’s basement that houses her many collections.
“Alex (his character) is very excited at first to be working with an icon’s most prized possessions, but he slowly learns more and more about her and, by extension, all people in show business,” Wallenstein said.
“Her world is full of things, but it’s a lonely place,” he added.
The story advances through the conversations that Alex has with other people — not just with his megastar employer, but with his resentful love interest, another less-than-successful actor. Alex goes through a process that makes him more self-confident and eventually stand up for himself, Wallenstein said.
It’s a big ask for a single actor, but Wallenstein is up for the challenge, as is Egan
“My challenge in directing one actor is that one person creates the entire story,” Egan said. “He has a lot of work to maintain the focus for 90 minutes.”
“The play shows a real human experience. The world is not going to be perfect even if you have all the things it contains. You can have rich experiences that aren’t connected to things,” he added.
Wallenstein also performs stand-up comedy, which he enjoys equally with acting.
“Many elements of stand-up benefit acting, but the challenge here is that I am telling someone else’s story, not my own,” he said.
IF YOU GO: Performances of Buyer & Cellar will be 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday (April 7 -10) at the Cider Mill Stage, 2 Nanticoke Ave., Endicott. Tickets at $25 can be reserved by visiting cidermillstage.com or by calling 607-321-9630. Current CDC protocols concerning COVID will be followed.
