In the beginning there was the book: Barbra Streisand’s “My Passion for Design,” about the diva’s estate on the California coast, complete with its own shopping mall. Or, as Streisand introduces it in her lavishly illustrated tome: “Underground…a basement?? No…a Street.”
Jonathan Tolins was so tickled by that concept that he wrote a one-man comedy about it, “Buyer & Cellar.” Starring Michael Urie, late of TV’s “Ugly Betty,” it’s playing to standing ovations at the Barrow Street Theatre.
Has Urie ever read the whole book? “It’s not in my library, but I got my mother a copy for Christmas,” says the actor, who’s emceeing the Dramatists Guild Fund’s annual gala tomorrow night. Here are four book that actually are in his library.
East of Eden
by John Steinbeck
I got into Steinbeck when I was at Juilliard, where we did a production of “The Grapes of Wrath.” This book took me quite a while to read, but I loved every second. It’s about two brothers who are a lot like Cain and Abel and what happens when their mother leaves them. It’s the only book that made me cry.
Dropped Names
by Frank Langella
Frank’s one of my favorite actors since I was 6 and he played Skeletor in “Masters of the Universe.” His book is full of anecdotes about famous people he knew, all of them now dead. He tells a zinger about Charlton Heston speaking at a dinner. “Isn’t he a wonderful speaker?” someone said and Maggie Smith said, “Yes. He shouldn’t be allowed to do anything else!”
World War Z
by Max Brooks
I don’t know Max Brooks or his father, [Mel], but I’m a zombie fan. This is an oral history with an unnamed narrator. Each chapter is another interview with a survivor of the 10-year-long zombie war. I enjoyed the movie, but it’s nothing like the book, which is really brilliant — and terrifying!
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
by Michael Chabon
Like “East of Eden,” this also has two central characters. Here they’re cousins — two Jewish boys who, right after WWII, get an office in the Empire State Building and start making these wonderful comic books. The characters aren’t real but the history is. I love anyone who escapes adversity and these kids are refugees.