Art in the Mist

by Frank Furnari, New Pre Reviewer

Bakersfield Mist, a new play presented at New Rep as part of a rolling world premier, is a play about art and its authenticity. 'Another play about art?' you might ask – isn't this the second one in New Rep's season, not to mention it being the topic of plays at other theaters? While it's true the play is about art, it's not typical, and it is based on a true story.

Maude was recently fired from her bartending job, lives in a trailer and is not your typical art collector or connoisseur. Maude, convincingly portrayed by Paula Langton, is what you might think a trailer park resident would look like – leopard print top, leather boots, a tattoo with her ex husband's name. She has, however, acquired what she believes to be an authentic Jackson Pollock painting (from a thrift shop no less!), and has hired Lionel Percy (Ken Cheeseman) to verify that the work is in fact by Pollock. Lionel arrives he appears to exude self-confidence – he is wearing a suit, has his hair slicked back, carries a briefcase, and he used to work at the Metropolitan Museum in NYC. The play gives each actor some great moments and each actor under Jeff Zinn’s shines really shines. During Maude’s monologue about her son, her recounting of events enthralled me and it seemed the rest of the audience was as well. The performance is brief (only 75 minutes), it touches on issues of what art is, who or what determines its value, and who is fit to own and appreciate art.

The set (Jiyoun Chang) and props (Nick Dorr and Mary Fritz) were perfect for the show. Upon entering, I was drawn to the small trailer on stage - it was a space that felt like it had been lived in for years. My eyes kept getting drawn to the various tchotchkes and other ‘artwork’ in the small space.

I was not excited about this play when I first read the description, but I am certainly glad I saw it. The play turned out to be interesting, funny at times, and very well done. Given the writing and the caliber of this production, it is no wonder that this show has been selling out so many performances. Back to my original question – another play about art? Yes – one that shows you to not always trust your first glance - this led to an enjoyable evening.

Bakersfield Mist Examines Authenticity

by Jana Pollack, New Rep Reviewer

"Bakersfield Mist", by playwright Stephen Sachs, is a study of authenticity. Authenticity of art is the subject of the play, and what unfolds is a discussion of what it means to live authentically. Unfortunately, it all seems fake.

The play opens when Lionel (Ken Cheeseman), a renowned New York City art expert, comes to the trailer park home of Maude (Paula Langton), a down and out former bartender. Maude believes that a painting she bought for $3 at a thrift store is, in fact, a Jackson Pollock. Lionel is there to provide his expertise on the matter, and he almost immediately pronounces it "not real." But, at Maude's urging, he stays a good while longer, taking shot after shot of Jack Daniels as they both reveal layers of themselves. Maude unsuccessfully uses various tactics to get Lionel to say that the painting is a Pollock. As each reveals personal traumas they've endured, a bond is created and they are able to see beyond their initial impressions of the other.

This is all well and good, and could provide an interesting study of why we latch on to certain ideas of truth and are unable to give them up. However, Sachs’ play does not allow for such depth. It is a predictable and surface-level look at these two people. Within the first five minutes, it’s clear that the playwright has placed them in this trailer so that they can spend 90 minutes learning to see each other differently. As a result, all of their admissions of personal truths seem forced, and cliché after cliché is hit as they recount their troubles. The playwright has taken the easy way out at every turn, and I left the play feeling empty and frustrated at the missed opportunity.

Langton and Cheeseman do their best. These are not bad performances, but they are strained by the lack of workable material. As usual, New Rep provides an evocative set, allowing the audience to feel like they are sitting comfortably inside Maude's homey trailer.

Long Day's Journey Into Night: First Rehearsal

Today New Rep subscribers and donors were invited guests to the First Rehearsal of our upcoming production of LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT. Director Scott Edmiston, winner of the Elliot Norton Award for Sustained Excellence (2011),  shared his inspiration for Eugene O’Neill and the overall process he and the designers have developed over the past year in order to bring the world of the Tyrone family to life. The design team, charged with creating an artful, theatrical world representative of a seaside New England cottage in 1912, shared costume sketches, electronic set plans, and original music composed for this production.

Guests are welcomed with home-baked cookies and snacks, before heading into the rehearsal hall.

Props around the room transport the viewers back in time before the read-through.

Guests, staff, designers, director, and cast mingle, while tidying up paperwork before the rehearsal.

Long Day's Journey Into Night director Scott Edmiston shares his insights on the play,
and describes playwright O'Neill as his first "creative hero."

The cast views images compiled as inspiration for the production designers.

Scenic designer Janie E. Howland describes their trip to Monte Cristo, O'Neill's family home in Connecticut.

Howland shows viewers the preliminary set design concepts.

 

Charles Schoonmaker, (front left) costume designer, shares insights on period wardrobe choices.

Guests view contextual images for each character, and the set.

Lighting designer Karen Perlow describes the challenges and excitement of lighting
the set, as the play progresses from day into night.

Sound designer Dewey Dellay showcases original music he scored for various scenes and theatrical moments. 

"Bakersfield Mist": Treasure Trove or Trailer Trash?

by Jack Craib, New Rep Reviewer

There must be something in the water, as we’ve recently been treated to a goodly number of artful, and artfull, local productions involving painterly creative works, given Speakeasy’s “Red”, New Rep’s “ART”, and now, again from New Rep, “Bakersfield Mist”. (Surely someone ignored the memo and should’ve been inspired to present a version of “Pitman Painters”). “Bakersfield Mist” is the new play by Stephen Sachs, part of the National New Play Network and a co-production with WHAT (Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater). It comes to New Rep with its collaborative team intact, including its Director Jeff Zinn (WHAT’s former Artistic Director), Scenic Designer Jiyoun Chang, (WHAT’s resident Set Designer at the top of her form) and the two stars of the previous run, Ken Cheeseman as Lionel Percy and Paula Langton as Maude Gutman.

The title of the play, which takes place in Bakersfield, CA, is a clever reference to one of Jackson Pollock‘s more famous titled paintings, “Lavender Mist”. Based on the true story of a retired truck driver (with only a grammar school education), living in a mobile home, who bought a painting for five dollars at a thrift sale only to be told it might actually be a Pollock, this short (75 minute) work is full of biting wit. Its brevity means that subtlety, of necessity, suffers a bit.

Cheeseman as Percy (a perfectly apt name for such a snob), an art expert contacted by Maude to pronounce his judgment on the painting, makes the most of his character‘s strengths and shortcomings. His elegy to the effects of Pollock‘s creative process is a hilarious physical recreation of love at first blink. No wonder that his professional (and, as we come to realize, personal) life rests on a tenous reputation for making snap judgments as to the authenticity of paintings (and people). Langton as Maude, ever within reach of a cigarette and a shot of bourbon, sporting a very visible arm tattoo to “Eddie”, captures her vacillation between tentative hope and dreaded desperation with both her waivering voice and sly body language. It’s not surprising that the bios of both actors evidence considerable Shakespearean experience.

The play is all about authenticity, in several forms, and the ability to recognize forgery when we encounter it. Percy proclaims that the awful truth is that the world wants to be fooled, yet he urges Maude to “be a person” (as she volleys back to him later in another context). It’s also about what matters more regarding the proof of the painting‘s provenance, the money it might bring or the validation she is seeking. Percy declares that his opinion means something, while hers does not. This may sound dry and pedantic, but it’s more often than not an extremely funny two-hander in these capable hands. There are occasional easy targets; Percy opines that “the Metropolitan is the Vatican of the art world”, to which Maude responds “out of touch with reality?”. Most often, Sachs hits the mark fairly and squarely. The bottom line, for this reviewer, is that this is a “Bakersfield” not to be “Mist” and earns a decidedly authentic and verifiable …..thumb up.

“‘Arête’ on Display in Bakersfield Mist”

There are certain things you can count on from New Rep; the acting will be of a very high quality, the production details superb, and the audience enthusiastic. The newest New Rep show, Bakersfield Mist, is no exception on the first two. It’s excellent, and we highly recommend it. We only wish the audience had been more appreciative the night we went.

The ostensible subject of the play (art and its value) is not new, but its format of exploration certainly is. "ART," the most recent New Rep show, focused on a similar topic, but in a very different world, sophisticated and urbane. Bakersfield Mist takes us to a decidedly unexpected setting for a discussion of abstract expressionism: a trailer a California trailer park, decorated with a wild conglomeration of tchotchkes.

At first the play’s humor is all about crossing class lines; Lionel, the haughty, elegant New York art expert (played expertly by Ken Cheeseman) arrives to examine a supposed Jackson Pollock that Maude (the excellent Paula Langton) bought for three bucks in a local junk shop. Lionel is appalled by the décor of Maude’s home and deeply uncomfortable with her blue language, chain-smoking, and serial whisky-shooting. Maude, meantime, is on edge, desperate to prove that her painting is real. Given her living situation and her anxiety about the painting’s possible worth, we assume her desperation is about the money; only later do we realize how – and why – the painting’s authenticity actually matters.

The characters are at first perfect embodiments of stereotypes, and we worried that class conflict wouldn’t be enough to sustain dramatic tension. We needn’t have been concerned. Lionel’s brittle shell disappears when he is lured into a wildly funny explanation of his love for Pollack’s work. Maude is smarter and deeper than we – and Lionel – first thought. Lionel sizes Maude up to be trailer trash. But underneath the red-lipsticked, leopard-print-and-jeans exterior, there’s real steel. We see this before Lionel does, largely because we’re paying attention; he allows his prejudice to cloud his view of her (a commentary on his valuation of her painting, too). Look especially for Maude’s frequent brilliant gesture of hitching up her pants, as if girding her loins for battle.

Lionel comes to surprise us as well, fortunately. When he begins to talk seriously about art his passion begins to shine through, and we have more compassion, recognizing that he too is more than he appears. His discussion of his own artistic failures, and the ancient Greek concept of “arête,” shows us the core of his being. Rather than define that term, we’ll strongly encourage you to see the show, and learn for yourself just what “arête” really is.

Like "ART," Bakersfield Mist uses art to reveal something about integrity and the authenticity of people as well as paintings. Special kudos to the set designer. We’ve been thinking all day about what the contents of that cluttered trailer tell us about the woman who lives there.

~ Shauna Shames & Johanna Ettin, New Rep Reviewers

Bakersfield Mist: First Rehearsal

Monday morning's first rehearsal of Bakersfield Mist welcomed the cast and crew from Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater's co-production of Bakersfield Mist to its new audience here in Boston.

Donors, art patrons and New Rep staff gathered to enjoy a few words from New Rep's new Artistic Director Jim Petosa, followed by insights on Bakersfield Mist by its director Jeff Zinn.

Viewers turned in their seats as Jeff pointed out that they were all sitting on the set! Some by the fridge, some by the table, and some sitting on the set's sofa. It was a dynamic experience to sit amongst the props while listening to a read-through by the actors.

Bakersfield Mist opens tonight at the Black Box Theater in the Arsenal Center for the Arts in Watertown. Eight performances are already sold out, and the excitement is high! For more information or to purchase tickets, visit www.newrep.org/bakersfield_mist.php. Better still, read the review of its performance at W.H.A.T. in The Boston Globe!

HOT MIKADO bridge makes a graceful gift to The Commander’s Mansion wedding garden

New Rep staffers wheeling the bridge used in Hot Mikado to The Commander’s Mansion. Photo by Charlie Breitrose.

It’s been a busy few weeks here at New Rep, as we welcomed our new Artistic Director Jim Petosa and announced our 2012-2013 Season. But we took some time yesterday to take a walk over to The Commander’s Mansion with a gift: the red bridge used in our 2010 production of Hot Mikado.

Lisa Yuen in Hot Mikado. Photo by Andrew Brilliant/ Brilliant Pictures.

Originally designed by scenic designer Janie E. Howland for Hot Mikado in 2010, the bridge had been taking up space in our scenic shop for a few years, getting in the way of loading in and loading out sets for our productions. We had discussed selling the bridge, but when we talked to The Commander’s Mansion, donating the bridge to them seemed like a perfect fit.

A beautiful wedding location and our neighbor at The Arsenal on the Charles complex, The Commander’s Mansion is our site of choice for the New Rep Premiere Party coming up on March 20th. Tammy McKenna and Rae Grassia at The Commander's Mansion were looking for a way to create a "secret garden," a new spot on their grounds where wedding parties could have photos taken, and the bridge was the perfect landscaping piece to kick off the project.

We're thrilled that this scenic element from a New Rep show will find a new life at The Commander's Mansion, both revitalizing an area of their grounds and providing a beautiful setting for wedding bliss.

New Rep staff with the bridge in its new home at The Commander's Mansion. Photo by Charlie Breitrose.


Read the Watertown Patch article about the bridge transfer here!