How Barbra Streisand’s interior design manifesto inspired an unlikely hit play
In her book ‘My Passion For Design,’ Streisand chronicled her costly quest to build the perfect home. Photo by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Jonathan Tolins November 7, 2023
For decades, fans of Barbra Streisand have been clamoring for an autobiography.
And for decades, she failed to deliver. Even when Jackie Kennedy herself offered to step in as editor, she simply wasn’t ready to take stock. So when jubilant headlines announced that Streisand was finally slated to release a door stopper memoir, the lay reader could have been forgiven for assuming that the star was a first-time author.
But in fact, Streisand’s autobiography, My Name Is Barbra, is her second book.
Her first — My Passion For Design, a coffee table design tome filled with opulent photos taken by the author herself — is already over a decade old. In that book, which she published in 2010, Streisand takes stock not of her career or personal life, but of something almost as important: her sprawling Malibu mansion and compound, every detail of which she seems to have carefully considered herself. Bursting with baroque upholstery, bespoke accessories, and centuries-old carpets, My Passion For Design shows what happens when obsessively correct “good taste” clashes with the no-expenses-spared ostentation of the aughts. The book quickly emerged as a cult classic — and inspired me to write a play that became an unlikely off-Broadway hit.
The book’s zaniest chapter depicted Streisand’s basement, which was like no other subterranean storeroom. To house various collectibles acquired over the years, Streisand created a main street’s worth of faux old-timey shops. The basement features a doll shop, a dress boutique, a gift “shoppe” and other fake emporia, complete with a cobblestone street for strolling. When my husband brought the book home from our local library, we were gobsmacked by the sight of this mall built for one. Thinking about the staff Streisand might hire to attend her shopping expeditions, I wondered, “How would you like to be the guy who works down there?”
That was the most important joke I’d ever made — because this surreal and downright wacky aspect of Streisand’s home inspired my play, Buyer & Cellar. While I had enjoyed a disappointing Broadway debut twenty years earlier (The Twilight of the Golds), and a moderate off-Broadway run a decade after that (The Last Sunday in June), Buyer & Cellar was every playwright’s elusive dream: both a critical and commercial success.
The play follows an unemployed actor, Alex More, who takes a job as a fake storekeeper in the underground mall. When the lady of the house comes down to “shop,” the two haggle over imaginary prices until a complicated friendship is born. At one point, my imagined Streisand explains why her first book is not an autobiography: “What’s left to say, right?” Apparently, a lot — because My Name is Barbra will clock in at nearly a thousand pages.
To write my play, I devoured My Passion for Design, honing in on every detail that seemed to offer insight into the author’s inner life. Envisioning myself (or my stand-in, Alex) in dialogue with Streisand, I tried to treat her just like any other fictional character I write. When this process works, you really do feel like you’ve come to know another person deeply — if only through imagination. In this case, I could feel how the task of perfecting her home and displaying it to the world might have provided a very necessary outlet for this star’s restless energy, as well as her need for validation. When the play premiered in 2013, I learned that not only had Streisand heard about the show, but she suspected I had a spy on her staff feeding me details. (Barbra, if you’re reading this, I swear there was more than enough material in the book.)
Like many books of its kind, My Passion For Design also serves as a time capsule for a particular cultural moment. In 2010, the McMansion era was in full swing: The preferred house size was gargantuan, and a glut of home improvement shows peppered the TV landscape, catering to those who could afford to make their houses an expression of personal identity. Streisand’s obsession with every detail her compound — at one point, she proudly describes matching paint colors to the exact hue of the eggs laid by her chickens — was an extreme version of the quest for creature comforts sweeping the country.
Even for humbler homeowners and renters, shopping was coming to mean clicking on Amazon. Movie theater attendance was dropping as Netflix mailed out DVDs. Soon, streaming would keep us pinned to our couches. Already a part of our lives, the internet was just beginning to dominate them. Re-reading the book now, after the COVID-19 pandemic spurred a reckoning with American wealth inequality, it’s impossible not to notice the lack of self-awareness only possible in an era the rich felt much less pressure to hide their privilege.
But in the early days of lockdown in 2020, My Passion For Design seemed eerily prescient. As she portrayed herself in the book, Streisand had devoted her life to getting everything just so, creating a personal utopia she would never want to leave. (Notably, she only agreed to make the 2012 road trip comedy The Guilt Trip if it could be shot within 45 minutes of her house.) Didn’t we all take up a similar task while hiding from the virus?
Early in the pandemic, the brilliant original star of Buyer & Cellar, Michael Urie, gave a live online performance from his living room. I was nervous about this new form of theater, which would lack the traditional give-and-take between audience and performer. How would my comedy play without any laughs? But somehow, this locked-down version felt just right for a play about staying home. Hunkered down in their own sanctuaries, thousands of Streisand fans (possibly even the icon herself), watched the play, which raised money for struggling entertainment professionals. It was also poignant to watch a play about this particular star, whose personal mythology has become so important to her fans — especially Jews and gay men, two tribes of which I am a member. Many of us have marked the different chapters in our lives through Streisand’s evolving recordings, movies, and even hairstyles. That night, connecting with her was also a way of connecting with each other.
However popular Streisand’s memoir proves, I will always be partial to My Passion for Design — and not just because it boosted my career. Streisand will probably use My Name Is Barbra to self-consciously craft her public image, and potentially settle a few scores. But in her first book, she reveals a lot about herself without necessarily meaning to. Her perfectionism, her need for control, her giddy enthusiasm for collecting things, her impatience with a world that rarely measures up to her expectations, are all there for the perceptive reader. That was the Streisand I tried to put onstage — driven, vulnerable, imprisoned by her fame, and a bit daft. I’ve been told by people who know her that I got pretty close to the truth; and I am very much looking forward to comparing Streisand’s version of herself with mine.
Months before My Name Is Barbra debuted, memoir lore was already spreading on the internet. One article revealed that on the way to final publication, the book was cut down from 1,040 to a trim 992 pages. Don’t be surprised if those missing 48 pages are released someday in a higher priced collectors’ edition. As we learned from My Passion for Design, Streisand is not in the habit of throwing anything away.
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