Backstage @ New Rep

“‘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