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Almost Maine Reviews
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Review by: , Feb 25, 2006 |
| EVERYONE WHO HAS LIVED HAS BEEN TOUCHED BY ONE OR MORE OF THE EXPERIENCES REFLECTED IN ALMOST MAINE--IT COULD HAVE BEEN IN THE ANY WHERE IN THE WORLD!!! |
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My recommendation:
must see!
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I saw this show with:
Spouse/Partner
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Recommended for:
The Entire Family, Adults, Anyone
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| 2 |
Review by: MisterOpinion, Feb 1, 2006 |
Ah, love. Mysterious. Magical. Confounding. Frustrating. Transforming.
In this recently-opened production consisting of nearly a dozen vignettes which all take place on the same long, cold, night in the far, far north of Maine, we get to see love and its effects from many different points to view.
(Warning: “Almost, Maine” is not meant for a hip, New York intellectual crowd. Though author John Cariani certainly gives his ... read more audience a fair amount to think about, the show is designed to please a mass market audience who want to walk out of a show feeling warm and uplifted and entertained. It’s a “date play.”)
Each of the vignettes plays with reality, setting up odd circumstances – but which the characters deal with in a very straightforward manner. At the local bar, The Moose Paddy, the special on this night is free drinks if you’re sad. When a woman tells a man that what she’s holding in a paper sack are the pieces of her heart, he isn’t shocked. Instead, in true Maine, capable-guy fashion, he offers to see if he can fix it for her. When the other shoe drops – it literally drops.
One of the best vignettes involves a woman who shows up at the doorstep of her long-time boyfriend’s house in order to bring back all the love he had given her, since he’s obviously not going to propose. “It’s in the car,” she says. It’s a lot. She hauls in a huge pile of sacks, ostensibly brimming over with the love he gave her. Of course, in true breakup form, she wants hers back. After much delay, he finally relents. When she sees the amount of love she’d given him, she’s flabbergasted. But her shock turns to surprise and delight in a sweet, Hallmark moment.
There are many such sweet moments, and many funny lines. The show could stand to move along a bit faster, perhaps by removing one or two of the less successful bits early on. But I found it charming. It will likely be on the board at TKTS regularly early in its run, but I think it has the possibility to build terrific word of mouth among tourists. The people in the two-fer line don’t want to see family heartbreak or hyper-intellectual plays of ideas. They don’t generally want their thoughts provoked. They go to TKTS because they couldn’t get into “Wicked” or “Spamalot” and want an alternative. They ask the barkers handing out flyers about different shows. If they hear “It’s an amazing play about two brothers, one of whom is developmentally disabled and was sexually abused by his junkie father, who later ends up killing…” vs. “It’s pretty good. It’s about this small town in Maine where people are falling in love with each other and learning about love and it’s very funny…” I can tell you where the bridge and tunnel crowd is going to end up. |
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| * Review is an opinion of a BroadwayBox user and not that of BroadwayBox.com and BroadwayBox, Inc. |
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