Almost Maine
Bradley University Theatre Department
November 10-14 & 17-20
By Douglas E. Love
This past weekend, Bradley University hosted the regional premiere of Almost, Maine — a quirky series of vignettes or skits which explores, not the majesty of the remote wilderness that is Northern Maine, but rather those transcendent moments of the heart.
What the vignettes have in common is the location; a common community of intertwined relationships — some blooming, some struggling to take root. It doesn’t really matter where the mythological Almost, Maine, is because it’s a more of a state of being than locale.
In the first vignette, for example, we are introduced to Ginette and Pete as they sit on a park bench, at night, in the snow. And as Ginette coyly and flirtatiously tries to get closer to Pete, Pete tells her that when two people are so close, they are actually the furthest away from each other as possible — making the analogy that they are three hundred and sixty degrees apart. As he draws a line around a snowball, as if it were the globe. As Ginette stands up and takes a step away from Pete, he says that they are closer. She does it again, and he says they are closer still. This repeats until Ginette has vanished from the stage, and Pete is sitting alone.
And so the similes begin — nine or ten of them in a row, depending on how you want to count them. The program actually lists only 8 vignettes, leaving out the Guy Who Couldn’t Feel Pain skit from Act I, and a dubious kind of finale skit, which quickly ties things together at the end.
Almost Maine is a show that can use as few as 4 actors, or take as many as 19 actors to play all of the roles. Director Doug Rosson decided to go with three men and three women to cover all the parts. They are Ashley Bendien, Chloe Dzielak, Krystal Uhl, John Carroll, Ross Cochran, and Jake Hayes. And kudos to those young people for a job well done. I think they made a fantastic ensemble, working very well with and against each other — swelling up with emotion or surprise; creating the necessary conflict and tensions when needed. So I was very pleased with the acting.
I did have some problems with the script, however. I mean, there’s a good reason it flopped on Off Broadway in 2006, no question about it. The writing is okay, in places it is very funny, but overall it just is not solid enough. The play is about relationships, but because there are so many different characters there is not enough time to develop those characters and not enough time for us to care about those relationships. And a lot of the time, the dialogue is forced when in real life; the other person would just walk away. Some of the revelations also seemed unnatural, for example when East meets Glory, that’s their names, so when East meets Glory, they are two complete strangers and more-or-less, upon meeting, East declares that he is in love with Glory. And because of the reasons I just cited, I didn’t feel it, or get anything out of it. And that’s just one example, there are many more. Overall, it just didn’t work for me. There were people in the audience who really, really, seemed to enjoy it. In fact, there was a partial standing ovation at the end.
I think the funniest skit, by far, was when Gayle stops over to see her longtime boyfriend Lendall, with the intention of breaking up with him. So, she enters his house and says, “All the love I gave you, I want it back. I’ve got yours in the car.”
When playwright John Cariani hits a good line, like that, the script sparkles and the audience roars. So, if you want to get away and have a few laughs, why not try Almost, Maine.
Almost Maine continues at Bradley University’s Hartmann Center Theatre Thursday, November 17th through Sunday, November 20th. Tickets are $17 for adults, $14 for BU faculty & staff as well as senior citizens and $9 for students and are available at the Bradley Box Office or by phone at 309-677-2650. For more information, visit http://slane.bradley.edu/theatre-arts/season
Posted on November 16, 2011
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