Almost Maine

I’m Isa Goldberg reporting on the Off Broadway play ALMOST MAINE.

ALMOST MAINE is almost entertaining and mainly light of heart. Mainards aside, its subject is romance and that’s universal. Universe here is symbolized by the stars which seem to multiply when you get all the way to Maine. Those that aren’t a part of the set, appear in the conversation.

John Cariani’s new romantic comedy with its series of eleven vignettes is playful, like young lovers, and nearly as sweet. His musings on love gone awry have the evidence of personal experience as the same themes are repeated over and over. Pursuit typically gets rejected, pushing creates withdrawal. Similarly, the solution is also the same. That’s giving the other person their distance - and what could be further away than Maine.

Here where the characters have too many clothes on to make sexuality very easy, coming together usually arrives after some demonstrated polarity. In one scene Finnerty Steeves portrays a mad young woman returning enormous bushels containing the love her boyfriend, played by Todd Cerveris, has given her over the years. Demanding in return, all the bushels she’s given him. His tiny satchel fortunately contains the ring.

Miriam Shor’s indignant wife is saved from fighting with her abused husband, Justin Hagen, when her shoe falls out of the sky. But the same actor falls flat on his face when he realizes that he’s in love with his best friend played by Todd Cerveris.

Usually it’s the quirky literal element, like the broken heart one woman carries in a paper bag, that evokes the real situation. Gabriel Barre directs the action with effortless realism. Therein lies all the comedy one needs. The outcome is genuine and kind of touching.

That’s This Week Off Broadway. I’m Isa Goldberg.