Bakersfield Mist at Hatbox Theatre

Alistair Cooke meets Roseanne Barr.Thats how playwright Steven Sachs describes the characters in his two-character play Bakersfield Mist, an 80-minute dramedy based on a California womans 1992 claim that a painting she bought at a thrift store was painted by the American abstract expressionist artist Jackson Pollock. In Bakersfield Mist, renowned art connoisseur Lionel Percy - a snooty art professor at Princeton University and the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York - is forced to visit Maude Gutman - a salty ex-bartender living in a trailer home in Bakersfield, CA, which is furnished with odds and ends shes found in junk shops and garage sales - to determine whether or not a painting she bought at a thrift store is a genuine Jackson Pollock. The title of the show is a play on Lavender Mist, Pollocks huge 10 x 7 canvas composed entirely of paint drips and splashes (including Pollocks own handprints) that emits a mauve glow, hence the name.Maude and Lionel come together to in hopes of discovering authenticity, truth, and possibly great art, but the play gradually becomes less about the painting and more about their own authenticity and their own passions, and how events in their lives have brought them to this moment. The juxtaposition of these two very different characters results in out-and-out hilarity, musings on what constitutes art, and who exactly gets to claim what is art - and what is not.The cast of Bakersfield Mist includes Peter Josephson of Henniker and Katie Collins of Manchester. The play is directed by Vicky Sandin of Nashua.Bakersfield Mist will be staged by the Community Players of Concord for two weekends, July 5 - 14, with shows on Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm and Sundays at 2. Tickets $17/$14/$12. Purchase online @ www.hatboxnh.com. Tickets may also be available at the door. The theater is air-conditioned and wheelchair accessible. More information is available at our website communityplayersofconcord.org, and on our Facebook page at Community Players of Concord, NH.