Millbrook’s 63rd season opens with a gem: A 90-minute, non-stop, one-man extravaganza of a show that allows the multi-talented Jackson Pavlik to shine.

Jackson returns to Millbrook after memorable turns as Frank-n-Furter in “The Rocky Horror Show” and the butler Wadsworth in “Clue,” both main stage productions. This time, the more intimate Cabaret stage is all his, giving him the opportunity to engage the audience, close-up, in the kind of high-energy, immersive performance that clearly is his gift. The play, “Buyer & Cellar,” offers a perfect vehicle.

The story was inspired by the real-life account in Barbra Streisand’s 2010 book “My Passion for Design” of the basement shopping mall she designed to contain and display her vast storehouse of collectibles.

The play presents a fictionalized narrative in which the main character, Alex More, a gay, out-of-work actor living in Los Angeles, is offered a job managing that shopping mall. He accepts the job and suddenly finds himself immersed in a world that seems to live by an entirely new, almost surreal set of rules. The mall includes a doll shop, gift shop, dress shop and antique shop, and yet it has no customers and, with the exception of himself, no employees. It has no natural lighting and no clocks.

Within this insular world that appears to exist outside ordinary space and time, events seem enclosed in a dream — or a kind of celebrity fairy tale. Has Alex been lured, like a naive princeling, to the castle of a beautiful (and possibly wicked!) Queen? And having fallen into that trap, has he then been locked by a possibly sinister house manager into an exquisite underground dungeon where he is fated to fall under the Great Lady’s spell?

In a surprising turn, he does end up — in a reversal of buyer and seller — with one customer, Barbra herself, who bargains fiercely with him over the price of one of her own dolls! Is this our hero’s requisite test? And once he passes it, is he then admitted to the even more seductive Inner Sanctum where — despite the warnings of his more cynical boyfriend (the jealous Unchosen) — he becomes the recipient of the Queen’s long-suppressed secrets, and yes, abandons what little is left of his common sense and pledges her his undying fealty, succumbing completely at last to her incomparable charms!?!

If this is indeed the play’s underlying thematic structure, the fact that its events are narrated, commented on, and acted out, with exuberance by its multi-dimensional solo performer gives the story a delicious, decidedly unGrimm-like resonance.

Jackson is fantastic. We watch as he moves seamlessly from one character to the next, and through an impressive run of emotional changes — from amazement to consternation to poignant revelation to delight — all in a spirit of irrepressible joie de vivre. The role is demanding, requiring that a comic sensibility prevails despite the more complex thematic background, and Jackson is able to keep the audience laughing throughout the 90-minute performance, endearing us to every one of his impersonations and, by the end, to the imperfections of the human condition itself.

Kudos to Jackson and to the entire production staff responsible for the show. Shannon Agnew, remembered fondly for her acting and directorial work over many years at Millbrook, directs the show. And Shannon, in addition to doing the sound design, worked with Artistic Director David Leidholdt and Scenic Designer Cade M. Sikora to design the set, a beautiful rendition of the mall that Barbra describes in her book as her “dream refuge.” The set is a meticulously tasteful rendition of the elegant personal Utopia that Barbra obviously worked so diligently to perfect and that stands, in the play, for the private world each of us constructs for our own habitation.

The bittersweet interaction between Barbra and Alex eventually reveals the imperfections not only of her Utopia but of all Utopias in general — while at the same time affirming our right (the ultimate gift from the Queen to her devotee) to demand the high standards that we all deserve.

Thanks to Connor Kleckner for the lighting design, to V.C. Deener for the props, to Ericka Lee Conklin for serving as Associate Producer and Electrician, and to Kaidyn Rogers for serving as the Production Stage Manager.

The show runs through June 13. See it! It’s a delight.

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Karen Elias lives in Swissdale. She taught English for more than 30 years, most recently at Lock Haven University and Penn College.