Barbra Streisand Deflates Heckler On Tour
Posted October 10, 2006 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The first is you don’t fool with Mother Nature.
The second is you don’t fool with Barbra Streisand.
The woman who practically defines the term diva returned to her roots on Monday, playing a sold out concert at Madison Square Gardens.
But the actress-singer-director, who likes to tightly control just about everything, was almost upstaged by a heckler in her hometown.
As Streisand, a noted Democrat and supporter of liberal causes, traded banter with a faux George W. Bush imitator on stage, a voice from the audience shouted jeers at her.
The actor was portraying Bush as an idiot and was interrupting the music.
At first Streisand tried to deal with the annoyance by addressing the offender with a simple, “Come on, be polite!” rejoinder.
But when the comments continued, she lived up to her reputation.
“Shut the F*** up!” she exploded at the man. “Shut up if you can’t take a joke!”
The loud applause that followed drowned out and finally silenced her tormentor.
Streisand later noted that the raison d’etre of a true artist is to ‘disturb’ and if that was her goal, she certainly succeeded.
Streisand is scheduled to play her first ever Toronto shows here next week. She’ll be at the A.C.C. on October 17th and the 20th. She’ll be in Montreal right before that.
It’s not certain if the Bush sketch, which has been the subject of much controversy on her comeback tour, will make it to Canada.
