Doug Protsik on old-time piano, accompanying “3 Gems from the Silent Movie Era”. For more information go to artsfamington.org. Submitted photo

“The Gold Rush” will be screened with Doug Protsik accompanying on piano at 7 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 1, at Emery Community Arts Center, 115 Academy St., Farmington

Protsik returns to lend his “Old Time Piano” masterfulness to a screening of Charlie Chaplin’s silent film “The Gold Rush.”

Chaplin, “The Little Tramp,” plays the lone prospector who, during the Klondike Gold Rush, becomes lost in a blizzard and trapped in a cabin with two other men without food. Forced to eat leather from a shoe and a trespassing bear, he finds himself in a desperate situation.

Chaplin, believing tragedies and comedies were not that far apart, drew inspiration from the Klondike Gold Rush and the story of the Donner Party who, while trapped in the Sierra Nevada, were driven to eat leather from their shoes and even cannibalism. Chaplin decided that the “little tramp” should become a gold-digger who joins a brave optimist determined to face all the pitfalls associated with the search for gold, such as sickness, hunger, cold, loneliness or the possibility that he may at any time be attacked by a grizzly.

Admission will cost $20, with free entry for children (through our Arts Inspire Youth program, funded through the Maine Community Foundation and Onion Foundation), as well as UMF students.

For tickets or more information visit artsfarmington.org.

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