Should Streisand & Dunaway act their age?

Have you ever felt so many contradictory emotions that you wished you had more than two sides of your face from which to talk?

Have you ever felt so protective of so many separate people and projects that you wished you had a flock of wings under which to put them all?

This is how I'm feeling about two impending -- looming? -- movie adaptations of important and beloved pieces of theater. Both have flickered on, then off, then on again so fast that close watching might cause seizures in people who love theater too much.

Both projects must surely be gross miscalculations, because both of their female stars, despite their career bests, are way too old for these force-of-nature star vehicles.

But who knows? One, or even both, could turn out to be dazzling. I confess, against logic, instinct and no small measure of cynical disbelief, that I'm rooting for them.

Earlier this month, Universal announced it is going ahead with a remake of "Gypsy" starring Barbra Streisand, who turns 70 next month, as the theater's ultimate stage mother, Mama Rose -- arguably the greatest female role in a musical in probably the most satisfying backstage musical of all time. This will be the first time Streisand has sung onscreen since "Yentl" in 1983.

And on Twitter a couple of weeks ago, Faye Dunaway (yes, she tweets) announced that her long, long-delayed movie version of "Master Class" is in post-production. Dunaway, 71, owns the film rights to Terrence McNally's 1995 theatrical fiction about real-life Juilliard classes conducted by Maria Callas in 1971. Dunaway, who co-adapts and directs for the first time, bought the rights when she played Callas on the road in the mid-'90s.

So, imagine the conflicts. Nobody -- or at least nobody at my keyboard -- wants to make too big a deal about age-inappropriateness. Hollywood, unlike the theater, doesn't exactly cherish the possibilities in older actresses. If Philip Seymour Hoffman, 44, can be so inventively powerful cast against type as 63-year-old Willy Loman in Mike Nichols' new "Death of a Salesman" on Broadway, why shouldn't moviegoers be seduced to buy into Streisand as the mother of two growing girls and Dunaway as a 49-year-old retired diva? Zoe Caldwell, the original Callas, dared anyone to notice she was 61.

We know the difference, of course. Movies are realistic. Modern makeup can be amazing, but, more often, close-ups have no mercy or sense of decency.

The threat of seeing women we admire turn themselves into horror-show variations of Norma Desmond in work we admire is real. More than one Internet wit has been having brutal fun imagining who might play this Rose's father (Ernest Borgnine, 95, is my favorite suggestion) and the strippers (so far, Ann-Margret and Tuesday Weld).

A director for "Gypsy" has not yet been chosen, or at least announced. It would be reassuring to hear that Streisand will not be directing herself. She is co-producing with Joel Silver.

A source close to the original creators of "Gypsy" tells me such major discussions have not happened yet. We do know that the iconic Jerome Robbins choreography will be included because, unlike most choreographers, Robbins shares legal authorship with the composer (Jule Styne) and lyricist (Stephen Sondheim).

Last year, a Streisand "Gypsy" for Warner Bros. was canceled when author Arthur Laurents withdrew permission. At the time, Laurents, who died in May at 93, told the Hartford Courant that he changed his mind because Sondheim asked why he wanted another film of the show. (The creators hated the 1962 movie with a mostly dubbed Rosalind Russell. But I liked it. Then again, it was my first "Gypsy" ever.)

"Sondheim told me something that he got from the British -- and it's wonderful. He said, 'You want a record because the theater is ephemeral. But that's wrong. The theater's greatest essence is that it is ephemeral . . . you can have different productions, different Roses on into infinity.' "

A month before he died, however, Laurents gave his blessing for the Streisand "Gypsy" at Universal. The new film, according to Playbill.com, gave Laurents and Sondheim approval over the creative team and casting. Asked how Streisand would do, Laurents, who directed Streisand in her Broadway debut in "I Can Get It for You Wholesale," said, after he killed the first version, "She could have done it."

It is hard to reconcile Mama Rose and Laurents -- both outspoken New York lifers -- with the new adapter, Julian Fellowes, the Brit of "Downton Abbey" and "Gosford Park." Imagine the voice.

But the film probably will not be directed by Tom Hooper, the Brit who made the Oscar-winning "The King's Speech." Although he was rumored to be onboard with last year's plans, he is now directing Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway and Russell Crowe in the easier-to-imagine movie version of the musical "Les Misérables."

Still, the road to "Gypsy" feels like a superhighway compared with Dunaway's journey with "Master Class." About half the film was finally made in 2009 for release in 2010, but production is said to have been derailed by a combination of money trouble and temperament.

Leonard Foglia, who directed the original "Master Class" with Caldwell, then Patti LuPone and Dixie Carter on Broadway, also directed Dunaway for an impressive 13 months on the road. He tells me that every woman inhabited different aspects of the tempestuous and fascinating but vocally diminished opera star. "Faye brought the glamour," he says.

Although he hasn't been connected with the film project for years, Foglia did work on the first draft with Dunaway. "Terrence wasn't sure it was a movie," he said. "The play is such an immediate theatrical experience. But I had an idea how to make it into a film. It went through 8,000 directors before she decided to direct it herself. I'm sure there is no trace of what I had left there."

But Foglia isn't surprised that the movie has taken so long to get made. "That world makes the theater feel like the fast track," he jokes.

On her tweets, Dunaway calls "Master Class" her "dream. I work on it every day. I am a perfectionist. It shall be worth the wait."

As Callas says in the play, "Art is domination. . . . You make people think there is no other way, no other voice." Streisand and Dunaway must be counting on that.