Funny Guy Makes an Eccentric Living Paying Homage to ‘Funny Girl’

Steven Brinberg smudges on frosted pink lipstick, pulls black hose over boxers and slips on a padded bra. He steps into a black gown and size 10 pumps.

Next comes the wig--a ‘60’s-looking bob--and the all-important fake fingernails.

Brinberg is becoming Barbra Streisand. “Sometimes it’s like ‘Oh yeah, I’m her,’ ” he says, eyeing himself in the dressing room mirror.

Not quite.

The transformation culminates when he saunters onto the Albany theater stage minutes later, belting out Barbra standards like “Evergreen” in an eerily dead-on impression. He speaks in Streisand’s Brooklynese between songs and even moves like her--with a silky self-possession.

Brinberg makes his living being Barbra. For six years, the actor has performed as a slightly off-kilter carbon of the famous diva, accompanied by only a piano. It’s a loving homage from a devoted fan, punctuated by a fair share of barbs at Babs.

“I’ve spent more time in her skin, in her songs, than her,” he says. “She’ll never catch up to me now.”

Brinberg’s imitation is all the more impressive because, offstage, he is so unlike Streisand. (“It’s only a part, not a lifestyle.”) He is slightly built, with short, dark hair. A five o’clock shadow makes his skin look nothing like buttah.

The Manhattan-based actor won’t reveal his age but offers that he was born “around the same time Barbra’s son was born,” which was 1966.

Brinberg traces his Barbra-mania back to when he was growing up in the Bronx and saw her 1975 sequel to “Funny Girl.” For him, “ ‘Funny Lady’ was the turning point.”

He hoarded school lunch money for her albums and played them until the grooves wore down. He saw “Funny Lady” four times in one month. From then on he unconsciously drank in Streisand’s little tics: the way she rakes her hair with her fingernails, the way she caresses a note.

This came in handy after college, when he gravitated into show business. Among imitations of female singers, his Streisand drew the loudest applause.

A cabaret act was born.

Brinberg polished his Barbra bit in a Manhattan piano bar, Don’t Tell Mama, in 1993. He has since taken his act as far afield as San Francisco, Houston and Scotland. He recently debuted in London’s West End.

The show celebrates Streisand, but with a wink. Brinberg’s Barbra talks between songs about her wealth, her perfectionism and her new husband, James Brolin, whom he proudly describes as a “B-movie and TV actor.”

On stage, Brinberg tosses off hits like “People” in pitch-perfect Streisand. But he toys with the illusion by mixing in absurd songs like “Home on the Range” in honor of our pioneer forefathers. For his closer, he sings the Streisand-Neil Diamond duet “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers”--both parts.

“Even though I’m portraying her, I’m commenting on her at the same time,” Brinberg says. “It wouldn’t be Barbra if she had a sense of humor about herself.”

But nothing too mean. Brinberg will not cross his eyes or otherwise make fun of his idol’s appearance. He will not wear a fake nose.

Instead, he relies on the wig, the falsies and the long black gown (“size 8 on a good day”), which also covers his hairy arms. He believes the fake fingernails also are crucial. Onstage, he will ostentatiously fold and unfold his fingers or use the nails to rake back his bobbed wig.

No one would mistake Brinberg for Streisand in a lineup, but his voice and his moves carry the imitation.

In his 90-minute show, Brinberg gives hints of acting talents beyond Barbra, dropping in quickie vocal impersonations of Katharine Hepburn, Bea Arthur, even Judge Judy. He is working on his Cher and Julie Andrews and is considering doing parts dressed as himself.

Not that he plans to drop Barbra any time soon.

Brinberg is making a comfortable living. He has amassed a thick collection of positive reviews from publications as different as the New York Post and Time Out, London’s guide to night life.

Tickets for his act sell for $22 or more, and he is routinely sought out for autographs after shows. Recently he saw one of his playbills auctioned online. “It’s kind of a small taste of what it must be like to be her,” he says.

There is still one unrealized goal: actually meeting the woman he pretends to be. He has not gotten any feedback from Streisand, although he says some people who have worked with her have liked his show and his CD.

No word on whether Streisand even knows Brinberg exists. Her publicist was not sure. Still, Brinberg appears optimistic about the chances of meeting or--hope against hope--performing with his idol.

“If we meet, and I think it might happen soon,” he says, “I think she’ll really like me.”