BARBRA - The Greatest Star
BARBRA – The Greatest Star, Hayes Theatre Co at Hayes Theatre, 21 January - 14 February 2026. Photography by John McRae
Singer, director, and creator Brittanie Shipway has pretty much done the impossible: compressed Barbra Streisand into 75 minutes by assembling a ridiculously talented company of singers and musicians, and a stage designer, Brendan de la Hay, who’s cornered the market in diaphanous drapery and lush artificial flowers.
If you’re one of those sad beings whose familiarity with the great diva is confined to “Hello Dolly” or “People”, here’s what you need to know: Barbra Streisand is, inarguably, exactly as described in the title of this “concert” show. Her astounding career began at age 16 in the 1960s. She is a unique, instantly recognisable singer and a fine actress. She’s an exceptional songwriter, a talented director and formidable producer of movies, and she’s an EGOT – a rare winner of Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards. Now, at the age of 84, the lifelong Democrat is a highly effective Trump tormentor and adored around the world.
Bearing all that in mind, the smartest thing about Barbra is the choice of musical collaborators: they’re all very different, and none tries to imitate Barbra. In the bar, a post-show question, “so who was your favourite?” was met with wide eyes and head shakes: Tana Laga’aia, Laura Murphy, Stellar Perr,y and Shipway are spectacular individual talents and so distinct, one from the other, as to make an answer impossible. They’re each first among equals.
There’s the widest and not always the most obvious selections of songs: “Cry Me A River” – a bluesy, subtle Shipway, “Lover, Come Back To Me” – jazz-sliding Murphy, “Bewitched (Bothered and Bewildered)” – the sweetest of tenors from Laga’aia, “Hello Dolly!” – a mischievous belt from Perry. Are they delicious? Yes, yes, and yes again. Multiply that by duets, trios, and quartets of 24+ songs across the decades of Streisand the songstress, and the musical cornucopia spills across the stage and out into a deliriously happy opening night audience.
Meanwhile, all is anchored and enhanced by pianist Nicholas Gentile’s acute musical arrangements. (Never mind an exquisitely gentle duet with Shipway on “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers”.) The onstage quartet – Gentile at the Kawai grand piano, Michael Napoli on electric bass, Sam Evans on drums, and Matt Reid on keyboards and conducting – performs the tastiest tunes from some of the greats of 20th century popular music: Leonard Bernstein, Jule Styne, the Bergmans, Jerry Herman, Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers, the Gibb brothers, Bob Merrill, Harold Arlen…it’s non-stop.
Barbra is performed amid the excess of blooms (because too many flowers are just not enough), and lit to lusciousness by Peter Rubie. With agile and focused sound design and flawless operation by Em-Jay Dwyer, each singer sashays in and out, off and on, and into and out of chorus lines (choreographer Zoe Ioannou) to make an unusually ravishing visual spectacle out of a simple concert concept.
Nevertheless, if these 75 minutes – more like 90 with the mandatory encore and delirious standing ovation – make you go home and check whether you still have Hello Dolly! on video, be reassured it’s on Apple TV and Disney Plus, or if you still have the gear: eBay has Blu-Ray DVDs for under $30. Or there’s Yentl, Meet The Fockers, and the rest of her 19 movies.
Of course, there are the many concert videos, any of which would brighten a dismal Sydney summer Sunday afternoon, and (gasp!) still available is the Columbia vinyl album of 1967’s A Happening in Central Park (including the dad joke about Latvia, where the Lats come from).
Meanwhile, however, Barbra - The Greatest Star is a major achievement for Brittanie Shipway and her company. Because it’s not a slave to Babs and each singer shines in their own light, it actually makes something illuminating, fresh, and unexpected out of songs that can sometimes sound hackneyed and tired in the wrong hands. These are the right hands, the right voices, and it’s all right on the night. Don’t miss!
