Almost, Maine Character Analysis

On Sunday, September 4th the Santa Rosa Junior College Theatre Arts Department presented Almost, Maine by John Cariani. Directed by John Shillington, Almost, Maine presents a variety of true to life situations that reflect the various stages of love and loss. All of the short scenes represent a pivotal moment in the lives of various people living in the same small town in Northern Maine; all scenes also take place at the same time on a Friday night, and during each of the moments the Northern Lights appear. The production takes place in the Junior College’s smaller auditorium; which makes sense because play by nature is very simplistic and minimalistic with a few set pieces that could easily be reused in each vignette while still making sense

But not quite.’The play’s intentions seem to be to portray love and relationships in the way they really are. There are eight scenes in the play, as well as an prologue, an interlude, and an epilogue; each scene focuses on one of nine ‘couples’(the prologue, interlude, and epilogue feature the same couple) whose relationships are moving from one stage to the next throughout the course of the scene. For example, the couple from the Prologue, Interlude, and Epilogue are on a date where they say ‘I love you’ for the first time; the couple from Where It Went are a married couple that realizes they no longer have fun together like they once did; and the couples from They Fell and Seeing the Thing are two best friends who realize that they are in love with each other in different ways. Each of the nine situations are situations that can, and do, happen in real life to real people. Many romantic comedies, as well as other romances, typically do not focus on ‘simple’ situations; they are centered around people who are thrown into some extraordinary situation that is not likely to happen to many people. Although people do ‘suspend their belief’ when they go to the theatre or to a movie; many situations in movies are still too good to be true in the way they are depicted. Almost, Maine has created

All of these people make up the hard working middle class, and nobody who had stayed in town is particularly rich. One could easily describe the town as being full of ‘simpletons’ and probably not be too far off with the majority of the population to some extent. The culture of Almost, Maine is the same as any American small town; it’s very true to the culture one would find in any small town, regardless of state. All of the characters have problems, jobs, and personalities you could find in any other small town-as well as in some larger towns and cities as well. Almost, Maine really is a realistic look into small town America; and provides some commentary on how outsiders from larger areas think of small towns. For example, in the scene Her Heart; the character of Glory is an outsider who has come to see the northern lights, and she tells East that her reasons for setting up camp in his front yard is because she had read in a brochure about Maine that people from Maine were so nice that they would allow complete strangers to camp out in their yards without having to ask. And in the scene Story of Hope, the character of Hope comments on people from larger towns asking questions like ‘Do you have plumbing all the way up there’