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 Poor Maude! Living
in
a trailer park, fired from her bartending job… even her best friend
refused the thrift store painting she bought for her birthday. But that
painting might just be… a lost Jackson Pollock! Her fate lies in the
hands of world- famous curator Lionel Percy, who shows up at Maude’s
trailer to determine its authenticity. What follows is a collision of
class and culture, where the ‘average Joe’ might finally throw it in
the face of those ‘east coast elites’. |
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REVIEWS: (click any photo to enlarge) |
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Class and culture
clash and collide to comedic heights in Stephen Sachs’ two-hander show,
Bakersfield Mist Provocative, fast-paced and cleverly funny, Olney Theatre’s Bakerfield Mist packs a riotous punch, elevating a comic debate about the authenticity of a painting to a reflective and relevant critique about the haves and have nots with smart, edgy dialogue, and a tingling bite. Review by Gina Jun Dexterously directed by DC veteran John Vreeke and headlined by Olney Theatre Center Artistic Associates Donna Migliaccio and Michael Russotto, Bakersfield Mist is a sassy drama inspired by news accounts of a woman who purchased what she hoped was a Jackson Pollock painting in a thrift store and whose quest it was to authenticate the piece.  Set on a clutter-filled trailer, packed with sundry
kitschy knick-knacks,(masterfully designed by Daniel Ettinger),
showcased with effective lighting and sound designs by Colin K. Bills
and Christopher Baine, Maude Gutman (convincingly portrayed by
Migliaccio) is a middle-aged, profanity-spewing unemployed bartender
who is anxious to prove the authenticity of the posited Pollock.A former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, hailed as the “Vatican of art” in the play, and an expert from the International Foundation for Art Research in New York, Lionel Percy (Russotto), visits Maude’s trailer to inspect the painting and determine if the piece is real or if it is a replica. Supercilious and swaggering, Lionel fancies himself the ultimate “fake buster.” Inevitably, as the two spar over the painting’s authenticity, the definition of art and what art should be and do is explored. Lionel’s richly-textured depiction of the dissimilarity between the hollowness of a drip-and-splatter painter who mimicked Pollock, and the magnificent spirit, intensity and allure of Pollack, which Russotto embodied and delivered with great gusto, gives pause and propels contemplation of personal elucidations of art.  While Lionel and Maude banter and battle about the
purpose of art and the shared experience that it can create, it becomes
palpable that this painting has impelled Maude with renewed hope and
optimism that she desperately needed in her lackluster life. She
“knows” that the painting is authentic just as much as Lionel “knows”
that it is not. Although she has reasons for her belief (some logical,
some intuitive), they mean far less than the basic fact that she does
truly believe; something that would have been nearly impossible were it
not for the power of art she now holds.Provocative, fast-paced and cleverly funny, Olney Theatre’s Bakerfield Mist packs a riotous punch, elevating a comic debate about the authenticity of a painting to a reflective and relevant critique about the haves and have nots with smart, edgy dialogue, and a tingling bite. Review by Gina Jun |
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Odd couple struggle over art in Bakersfield
Mist
Review by Jayne Blanchard The elite and what writer H.L. Mencken called “the booboisie” clash over what is a genuine masterpiece and the higher purpose of art in Stephen Sach’s uproarious and sneakily thoughtful play Bakersfield Mist.  Director John Vreeke lets actors Donna Migliaccio and
Michael Russotto soar in unexpected directions and the subject matter
rise to lofty heights, while keeping the play rooted in rawhide
realism. No easy feat, but Vreeke’s production at Olney balances the
erudite and earthy.The reality of the setting is conveyed by Daniel Ettinger’s sliced-open, slice-of-life trailer set, which gives the audiences a two-sided, neighborly view of the kitsch-cluttered double-wide owned by Maude Gutman (Donna Migliaccio), a former bartender in Bakersfield who’s on a first-name basis with Jack Daniels. Maude may be a rough around the edges, but she’s no dummy. She’s made a second career of foraging dumpsters, yard sales and thrift stores for “finds” and after all these years her eye has turned up what she believes is a Jackson Pollock painting.  Based on the true story of Teri Horton, who didn’t
know Jackson Pollock from fried pollock until she bought a splatter
painting in a thrift shop and embarked on a quest to prove its
legitimacy, Bakersfield Mist delves into the world of art forgeries,
but it also touches on what’s real and what’s fake in ourselves as we
search for authenticity in our own lives.Maude has enlisted the services of esteemed art curator Lionel Percy (Michael Russotto), who once was the self-proclaimed “pope” of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which he likened to a Vatican dedicated to the proper worship of art. Lionel’s glory days as director of the Met are long past, but he now works for a tony foundation dedicated to art research. He arrives by limo to Maude’s trailer, ripe with hauteur as he inspects his surroundings and prepares to give his famous, supposedly infallible “blink” to the canvas.  His conclusion is that it is not a Pollock. Why?
Because it left him feeling hollow, unmoved—not like the feeling of
frenzied movement and inchoate emotion he undergoes with the real
thing, which he describes in an orgiastic, ecstatic monologue that is
one of the highlights of the play.The more he tries to convince Maude it is a forgery, the more she wants him to believe as she does—that it is a real, undiscovered Jackson Pollock. She has evidence to prove her case, but more than that she thinks it is a masterpiece because it moved her. She has become lost in the painting and believes that it found her instead of the other way around. That’s a big deal for someone whose taste in art runs to clown paintings. Is that art—the unbound feeling you get when you look at a painting or a work of art and feel lost and then found and then experience an almost sacred duty to protect it? Bakersfield Mist explores the nature of art and why we need it in our lives. But it also speaks to the real thing deep inside us, what Maude beautifully expresses when she describes the experience of having a child: “It’s like your heart is outside of you walking around.”  Lionel would probably say the same thing about a work of art—it makes the invisible, indescribable visible. Ironic that a painting is what brings them together. The interesting thing about the play is the contrast between Maude and Lionel, which makes for rich comic fodder but also points out their approach to life. Lionel has made his life and career a work of art, a statement about beauty and aesthetics and Russotto ideally captures the carefully-curated façade of Lionel’s self-made creation. Maude, on the other hand, is a piece of work. Migliaccio portrays the hard-drinking, free-wheeling aspects of Maude’s personality, but also the pain and anger underneath the brassy bravado. Why shouldn’t Maude have hope? Why shouldn’t she be the lucky one for once?  As carried aloft as you get by the conflict and
convincing between Maude and Lionel, there are some aspects of the play
that rankle. The audience is required to take some large leaps of faith
that strain credulity. How exactly did Maude go from someone willing to
shoot up the painting with bullets to an acolyte to Pollock’s genius.Is it really not about the money for Maude? It’s not that she has hit the jackpot both financially and in the realm of cultural significance but instead that the painting has spoken to her and she has become its protector? That change from drunk, depressed junk collector to shining defender of art just doesn’t wash. And Maude’s drinking and crude palaver are used for laughs, but her self-destructiveness is truly disturbing. Nor does Lionel’s last remark to Maude ring true as he flies out the door like winged Mercury. Again, there is no evidence for his eleventh-hour appraisal, so in a sense the play becomes guilty of emotional forgery as well. Review by Jayne Blanchard |
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Director John Vreeke takes the audience deep into the psychology of the characters… Review by Julia Junghans Set in a present day trailer park, Bakersfield Mist by Stephen Sachs reveals the tensions between the sophisticated upper class and seemingly uneducated hillbillies. Maude Gutman (Donna Migliaccio) a long-time resident of Bakersfield Park, has what she and others believe to be a previously unknown Jackson Pollock painting. Enter Lionel Percy (Michael Russotto), art connoisseur and Jackson Pollock expert. He has been sent from New York to inspect the painting and determine its authenticity. The two characters clash the minute they meet.  On first impression, Maude is a cynical woman who
collects the junk others have thrown out; and Lionel is a condescending
man who will not hear anyone else’s opinion. But it does not take long
for both to prove that first impressions can be completely unreliable.
As the action unfolds, the audience learns pieces of the past that
enlighten the current situation.Migliaccio expertly expresses the desperation of Maude’s circumstances while coming up against the formidable force that is Russotto as Lionel. He thwarts her at every turn and feeds off her energy to fuel his passion for art and authenticity. The play brings up the questions of what is authentic and what is art’s purpose. Migliaccio and Russotto provide answers from their perspectives and leave the audience pondering their own answers. Director John Vreeke takes the audience deep into the psychology of the characters, shedding light on their pasts and how they still affect the present.  Costume Designer Seth M. Gilbert helped to develop the characters through his choices. The costumes are appropriate and well-chosen, but were not a highlight and nor do they need to be. Lighting Designer Colin K. Bills makes the audience feel as though they are standing directly outside Maude’s home and just peeking through the windows. The set is a pink trailer that splits the audience in two sections. Most of the walls of the trailer have been cut away in order for the audience to see inside. It is full of knick-knacks and collectibles straight from the thrift stores Maude frequents. Scenic Designer Daniel Ettinger magnificently creates Maude’s world and draws in the audience to her home and her mind. Sound Designer Christopher Baine rises to the challenge of an almost theatre-in-the-round. The modest music and effects are not overwhelming but heighten the reality the audience enters into. Review by Julia Junghans MD Theatre Guide |
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 Assessing the true value of a painting
may not be as easy as it seems. Review by Keith Loria It's the fantasy of many: to walk into a thrift store or wander by a garage sale and find a priceless treasure selling for a few bucks. Forget the American Dream, this is the American Castle in the Sky. It's also the basis of playwright Stephen Sachs's Bakersfield Mist, currently playing at the Olney Theatre Center.  Based on the true story of Teri Horton, who purchased
what she thought to be a priceless Jackson Pollock painting for $5, the
play is essentially a comic debate about the authenticity of a painting
between Maude, a foul-mouthed, unemployed bartender living in a trailer
park, and Lionel, the audacious art expert who arrives to authenticate
the Pollock. However, the art expert's critique goes much deeper,
relying on stereotypical first impressions of Maude, and through a
collision of cultures and class attitudes, we soon learn that not
everything is what it appears.Donna Migliaccio is an absolute hoot as Maude, the boozy loner who desperately wants validation — although whether it's for the painting or her life is really what's at question. She is masterful at transitioning from comedy to drama at the blink of an eye, as Maude's determined to get what she wants will stop at nothing, including threats, sexual favors, and sheer desperation. When Maude pleads with Lionel, "You're my last hope. I need your blessing," it melts the heart just a little bit. When we learn about Maude's unruly husband, a tragedy from her past and the circumstances of her losing her job, it's hard not to empathize with what she's going through, and Migliaccio grabs hold of every ounce of emotion in a wonderful portrayal.  Michael Russotto is the perfect foil to Migliaccio's
Maude, playing the arrogant art expert Lionel with demons of his own.
Snooty, with an heir of superiority, Lionel reveals that he relies on
first impressions, and he soon realizes that with Maude, that is a big
mistake. In Russotto's best scene of the play, Lionel is sitting back,
waiting for the unveiling of the painting, and his exaggerated animated
reactions are priceless. He spends a good five minutes in silence,
examining the work from every angle as a nervous Maude looks on. All
the audience hears are wind chimes, and Russotto's facial expression
and body movements would make Charlie Chaplain proud, until his
character finally breaks the silence with his verdict on the painting.Scenic designer Daniel Ettinger does a splendid job of crafting a trailer in the center of the theater that personifies every element of Maude. Her walls are adorned with Home Shopping collector plates of Princes Di, animals, a Dolly Parton album cover, and whimsical beer signs.  Working with a small
space, director John Vreeke creates a ton of action in the one-room
trailer set. He has the characters move and bob like they are in a
boxing ring, each taking jabs at the other's life until finally an
all-out assault occurs.Costume designer Seth M. Gilbert's outfits for both characters ring true. The real hero of the production team is sound designer Christopher Baine, who throughout the many silences in the play, layers in wind chimes, howling wind, and the occasional car racing by. The authenticity of Baine's soundscape makes you feel as if you are really in this trailer. Whether the painting is an authentic Pollock isn't at the heart of Sachs's wrenching story. What is important to Maude is its validation. The instant judgments we make on paintings (and people) aren't always justified. Review by Keith Loria Theater Mania |
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 Review by Susan Berlin Bakersfield Mist, Stephen Sachs' amiable comedy now at the Olney Theatre Center in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, provides a dynamic showcase for actors Donna Migliaccio and Michael Russotto. As directed capably by John Vreeke (with riotous fight choreography by Casey Kaleba), the comedy-drama considers the clash between two people of widely differing backgrounds on the field of art.  The play, inspired by a true story, takes place in
the cluttered trailer home of Maude Gutman (Migliaccio), a currently
unemployed bartender in Bakersfield, California. Daniel Ettinger's
scenic design takes up the entire length of the Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre
Lab, with seating on both sides; he has filled the space with
"something someone threw away," as Maude says, including metal signs
advertising beer, plaques displaying tacky slogans, "collector's
plates" with pictures of bygone television stars, and beat-up pieces of
furniture.Maude explains to Lionel Perry (Russotto), an art appraiser from New York, that she spent $3 at a secondhand shop for a painting she considered hideous, as a joke gift for a friend. Then an art teacher she knew told her the painting could be a previously unknown work by Jackson Pollock, so—seeing as how she could use some extra money, not to mention recognition at a tough time—she has sought proof of the work's authenticity.  Naturally, the conflict between the rough-edged
Maude and the rather pompous Lionel goes beyond whether the famous
artist actually painted the work. Where Maude finds beauty in found and
discarded objects (and is coping with a hidden sorrow that telegraphs
itself early), Lionel goes into raptures in describing Pollock's
technique of physical engagement with the canvas. In contrast, his
method of determining the work's authenticity is silent and almost
ritualized: the seated view, the close examination, the attempt to feel
the "life" that only a real work of art exudes.Both Migliaccio and Russotto have done notable work in the past and they are well balanced here, with sufficient personal appeal and magnetism to ease over the sometimes schematic plot. Review by Susan Berlin Talking Broadway |
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 A potential Jackson Pollock painting sparks
an exaggerated class war
Review by Celia Wren  Curator Lionel Percy gets a full-body workout when he
assesses a painting. As portrayed by Michael Russotto in Olney Theatre
Center’s “Bakersfield Mist,” the art expert approaches a canvas with an
absorption that is positively calisthenic. Appraising an abstract
expressionist work that’s a snarl of snaking lines, Lionel steps
forward and backward, forward and backward, as if engaged in a court
dance. Then he scoots up to the painting, standing tall, then bending
low, to follow a line’s contour with his eye. At one point, he even
turns around and scrutinizes the canvas over his shoulder, for added
perspective.As this sequence might suggest, director John Vreeke’s production takes a hyperbolic approach to the figure of the conceited Lionel. But, then, subtlety is not exactly the strong suit of Stephen Sachs’s intermittently comic drama. “Bakersfield Mist” revels in the discord that ensues when the snobbish East Coast-based Lionel pays a visit to Maude, a California trailer park resident who believes she owns an off-the-radar Jackson Pollock painting. It’s a colorful scenario, but Sachs renders Lionel as such a caricature — and Russotto’s interpretation here so emphasizes the cartoonishness—that the culture-clash narrative feels like a facile contrivance. (The play was inspired by true events.)  It’s easier to believe in Maude, portrayed by Donna
Migliaccio with an air of coarse, wary vibrancy. Fired from her
bartending job, and reeling from a personal loss, Maude has realized
that her painting — which she bought for a few dollars from a thrift
shop — is the spitting image of a Pollock. Seeing the canvas not merely
as a potential cash cow but as a source of much-needed emotional
ballast, she has arranged for Lionel to determine the work’s
authenticity. When the curator goes through his dance-like appraisal
routine, she watches him with a look that shifts, second by second,
along the spectrum between rapt wonderment and grimacing anguish.The expressive set, designed by Daniel Ettinger, features a narrow trailer home, tricked out with beer posters, kitschy figurines, bumper stickers, a clown painting, plasticky furniture, all testifying to Maude’s limited finances and populist taste. The audience sits on two sides of the trailer — a configuration that underscores the play’s portrait of oil-and-water cultural and demographic types.  The opposition between Lionel’s and Maude’s
worldviews often plays out in the dramaturgical equivalent of italics,
from the curator’s horrified reaction to his surroundings when he first
enters the trailer, through the arrogant contempt he exudes in his
early dealings with Maude, through a good deal of dialogue that hews
surprisingly closely to “Yes, it’s authentic”/“No, it isn’t”/“Yes, it
is” lines. Unlike some other plays that have gracefully fused narrative
and characterization with musings about art, commodification and value
(Yasmina Reza’s “Art;” Naomi Iizuka’s “36 Views,” etc.), “Bakersfield
Mist” addresses its themes in bald fashion. “You are certainly not the
standard art collector I typically encounter. . . . I hardly see you
sipping Clos du Mesnil with Diane von Furstenberg at Acquavella
evaluating de Kooning,” Lionel quips disdainfully to Maude at one point.To make matters worse, the play’s storytelling sometimes seems to lurch. There’s almost no payoff to an abrupt revelation involving a potential purchaser of the painting, for instance.  The production does feature some entertaining, if perhaps not plausible, set-piece sequences, such as an episode in which Lionel, shedding his inhibitions, waxes passionate on the subject of Pollock’s creative process. And some comic moments come across with zest. (One of them involves the Velveeta-enhanced wiener rolls Maude has prepared for Lionel’s visit.) And the play’s denouement — in which Maude reveals another dimension to her feelings about the painting — is affecting. At one point the trailer park resident sits quietly, contemplating her mysterious drip-style canvas. You feel that she appreciates the work more than Lionel ever could. Review by Celia Wren |
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Bakersfield Mist - Photos
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