ARTS REVIEW: 'BAKERSFIELD MIST' AT THE FOUNTAIN THEATRE

Dynamic Duo Wrestles with the Meaning of Art

By: Clare Elfman

June 20, 2011

(Los Angeles, California) The joy of this one-acter by Steven Sachs begins before the play opens, simply viewing the colorful, kitschy set. The interior of Maude Gutman’s trailer is “artistically” decorated by the exuberant ex-bartender from garage sale stuff. Her concept of good art: a print of clowns’ heads.  But her “art collection” also includes another large canvas bought, for a joke, as the ugliest  $3.00 painting in a thrift shop -- a mess of a spattery thing.   

Or perhaps not. The local art teacher has informed her that it might actually be a genuine Jackson Pollack, worth millions. What, this spatter of paint? Maude’s life is a worse spatter: lost job, wretched husband who took off long ago, a son killed in an accident, a lost job... Now, if this canvas is genuine, it may give her life another dimension.

But the canvas has to be validated. And on the scene arrives Percy, the art “expert,” a man whose word is the absolute final word in authenticity. Stiff-necked, imperious, this “expert’s” whole life depends on his expertise. He pronounces the canvas a forgery, and he stakes his reputation on it. Percy is a dry man, envious of the passion of the artist. His one speech on how Pollack painted the canvas -- the sensual, almost sexual nature of his work, the spatter of paint compared with orgasm -- is a delight, a revelation of the  passion that the world of this “expert” has never achieved.  

Now begins the duel of arguments between them. And as the fight progresses, we see beneath the surface of the “canvas” two personalities whose lives depend so much on “validation.” If she can prove this canvas an original, it’s much more than the money: it’s validation of a spoiled life. And his life, which has been a personal failure, has value only as long as he’s “right.”

The play concerns not only the question of what is the nature of “art” but the nature of the two lives dependent on the validation of this canvas. He expects that his opinion is a cut, dry, and goodbye. She’s not about to give up a dream. She has heard this negative opinion before, and she refuses to accept it. And here begins the verbal duel between them: Stephen Sachs’ sharp dialogue -- passionately delivered by Jenny O’Hara and Nick Ullett, husband-and-wife acting team -- is fast-paced and enormously clever. And as the interplay between them progresses, there is a subtle shift in emotion.  And the “expert” begins to see Maude differently.

I admit that, at the end of the play, I was tempted to question Maude’s motivation. Some of her arguments took me off center. But on rethinking the play, I realize that this was a desperate woman, her life depended on the validation of her canvas. She was debating a more verbally clever man, and in order to gain advantage to her battle, she has to use every arrow in her quiver.

So that, along with the question of exactly what is art, comes the question of what, indeed, does the human spirit need in way of validation to proclaim itself  “authentic”? Is our sense of identity authentic in the heart, or does it often need outside “validation”? Is it, as Shakespeare puts it in Julius Caesar, …the eye sees not itself but by reflection… or do we listen to “Popeye the Sailor Man,” he of the old cartoons, who said, “I am what I am and that’s what I am”?

Entertaining and provocative one-act by Stephen Sachs at the Fountain Theatre until July 31st. 5060 Fountain. (323) 663-1527