‘Almost, Maine’ Is a Lot of Fun

Rudy Galvan, Bree Beelow. Photo by Michael Brosilow.

There is almost a place at the northernmost tip of the East Coast where an almost town of people, some married, some not, speak about the same almost pub and enjoy the same hardy winter exercises of skating and snowmobiling.

It is an imaginary rural land that seems suited to scenic designer Lisa Schlenker’s cutouts of trees, her benches, props and rocks made out of canvas, aided by Greg Hofmann’s spotlight-aided mood lighting and costumer Amy Horst’s layers of colorful winter garb (there’s even a laugh elicited by the clothing), all to enhance nine comedic vignettes about the eruption and embarrassment of love.

Your experience at this play may not carry the waves of laughter mine did. You may not always have as friendly an audience of supporters as Almost, Maine had opening night at the Next Act Theatre. But you will find some good chuckles, effective moments of interplay and recognizable love incidents from life. The production will also spur interesting debates about which actors best carry off the sly and pratfall humor. There are four performers in total, each playing multiple parts, with only a few vignettes directly related to each other.

Playwright John Cariani, an actor himself, has sort of road-tested Almost, Maine over 20 years. It has become one of regional theater’s most frequent offerings (it also had New York runs). That fact may say more about today’s American audience than the art of theater – though keeping timely over two decades is a sign of knowing what the public likes.

Cariani has conversational fun putting a surreal twist on each acting duet. Mainly he uses the device of turning familiar metaphors about love into actual events. Her heart is broken. He took bags of love and gave little back. They didn’t mean to fall in love, but fall they do. The shoe will drop on the couple’s anger after years of neglect. Think of all these cliches happening literally and you’ll get an idea of how the play keeps us watching.

Director Karen Estrada has sought to get her cast on the same stylistic page. This in a way is like the best Mike Nichols and Elaine May improvisational theater of old, with conversations turning ridiculous but in realistic terms, the humor emerging from how the situation is handled. The best of the bunch in several roles – alternately goofy and lovelorn, with a sly wink encouraged by the dialogue — is Rachael Zientek, who has found comic gold in every outing.

Bree Beelow has a couple of gutsy high-volume character studies where she captures the same sense of determination and comic desperation. Jake Horstmeier, putting on a dumb, woebegone face and some snappy line readings, has several fine moments while Rudy Galvan is caught in too many roles too close to each other but displays gifts of timing when given a chance.

Technically this is a well-handled production, easy to follow since we all recognize the romantic situations and the comic spin put upon them. Nor would it be fair to give away too many of the turns. Setting it all in rural America heightens the humanity and spares us the complications of big city pretenses to sophistication. It is a pleasant light outing rather than a spectacular one.

Almost, Maine runs through December 15 at the Next Act Theatre, 255 S. Water St. Buy tickets here.

Almost, Maine Gallery

Dominique Paul Noth served for decades as film and drama critic, later senior editor for features at the Milwaukee Journal. You’ll find his blog here and here.