New Century Theatre, Northampton, MA
through July 9, 2016
By Konrad Rogowski
To pirate an old adage ... beauty, art, and value are each
in the eyes of the beholder, and nowhere is that more true than in New Century
Theatre’s lively production of Stephen Sachs' "Bakersfield Mist."
Ellen Barry and Richard McElvain play the two combatants on
this field of clashing perceptions of that age-old debate over what is art?
Maude Gutman, a salty tongued trailer park collector of anything 'art-sy' ( as
demonstrated by her immense collection of dumpster diving acquisitions), claims
to have found an undiscovered painting by Jackson Pollock. Lionel Percy, art
historian and self-proclaimed "connoisseur," can't quite bring
himself to declare the find the real thing, despite the evidence to the
contrary. What follows is as artistic and entertaining debate/knife wielding
scuffle as the art world has seen over what is either a four by four foot piece
of someone's painting drop cloth, or the genius of one of art's greatest
contemporary masters.
Like Pollock's work, the script provides lots to see and
hear with the verbal jousting going from passionate and soaring dissertations
on both sides, to crude and sometimes cruel diatribes lobbed like hand
grenades. In the process, not only is the ethereal veneer of art clawed away,
but that of the combatants as well, as their real life successes and failures,
personal and professional, are exposed to the raw light cast by another's
critical eye. In the end, the debate of what is art may not end up being what
you think it might be. What is true, is that the artistry of the author,
director and cast is unquestionably the real thing.