If you got one do-over, what would it be?
Would you pop the question?
With the wisdom of hindsight, would you decline the offer?
Or would you simply plant the kiss that’s haunted you all these years?
Such thoughts may creep into your head as you watch Almost, Maine, this weekend’s theatrical production at Morristown High School. It runs for four shows from Nov. 16-19, 2017; tickets are $8-$15.
Nine vignettes play out in a fictional town so remote, it’s not even on the map. Ordinary people fall in and out of love in ordinary places–a laundry room, a skating pond, a snowy park bench illuminated by the ghostly Northern Lights.
Think Cicely, Alaska, in Northern Exposure…only less populated.
Slideshow photos by Kevin Coughlin
Almost, Maine is billed as a “real romantic comedy,” but playwright John Cariani’s humor is gentle. It’s more poignant than side-splitting. Some sketches work better than others.
Maggie Mustion and Ethan Hoffman pump new life into a broken heart. Kate Croonquist and Nathaniel Zuluaga rekindle a sputtering relationship by measuring their love in cleverly visual terms.
Two pairs of pals (played by Jacob Gulisano/Ethan Hoffman and Jenny Stumpf/ Julieta Quineros Amat) come out of the closet–or is it the ice-fishing shack?–in slapstick fashion.
Victoria Fanning hopes for a happy ending with Topher Bashant and…and…and… no spoilers here!
“Relationships are simple and complicated, full of highs and lows. That is what is so beautiful about this sweet play,” Director Michael Maguire, himself a newlywed, writes in the program notes.
For him, the production evokes situations where love typically finds people: “The nervous dinner conversation, the warm comfort of just being near each other, first fights, first real fights, the uncontrollable belly laughs together…”
The stuff that can make ordinary feel extraordinary. Things don’t always end well in Almost, Maine. But it’s worth a visit.
