John Cariani’s Almost, Maine — a collection of nine playlets about love in an isolated small town in northeast Maine — is such a crowd-pleaser that it’s easy to overlook how well written and thoughtfully conceived it is. Each playlet is a two-person romantic comedy sketch with a touch of magical absurdity and a fable-like twist.
The show premiered in Portland, Maine in 2004 and has since been produced off-Broadway and in hundreds of local theater companies and schools across the country. It has even been a source of controversy, when a high school in Maryland tried to censor it because of its one gay-themed vignette, which is as innocuous as can be. And now it has come to the Provincetown Theater, directed by the company’s maestro, David Drake. The result, not surprisingly, is astonishingly well performed and tastefully presented — a year-end confection that brings the 2024 season to a proper close.
Comedy is all about timing, and romantic comedy is essentially one long tease. This kind of acting may look easy, but it’s enormously difficult to do well. Almost, Maine, with its nine short episodes, is full of small, subtle moments: a raised eyebrow, an ironic retort. There are confused pauses, interruptions, unspoken gestures, and unfinished thoughts, as well as rapid banter and physical comedy. The 18 performers in Drake’s Provincetown production never miss a beat. There isn’t a weak link among them. This level of professionalism is rare in community theater, and many in the cast do indeed live and work here. Almost, Maine sets a high bar.
Cariani has said that the nine playlets are about people falling in and out of love. That’s true, but there’s usually an oddball premise that gets things moving. In the prologue, for example, a couple (Darlene Van Alstyne and James Cerne) tentatively declare their love for each other, then struggle to move close together on an outdoor bench in the snow. That sets the mood for “Her Heart,” in which Glory (Jadah Carroll) erects a tent on the property of a local homeowner (Paul E. Halley) as a way to heal her broken heart — the broken pieces of which she carries in a brown paper bag.
In “Sad and Glad,” Jimmy (Sean Flyr) encounters a woman he can’t get over (Katie Pentedemos) in a bar and refuses to see just how much she’s moved on with her life. Solace arrives in the form of a sassy waitress (Laura Scribner). “This Hurts” begins with Marvalyn (Racine Oxtoby) accidentally bopping Steve (Robby Silva) with an ironing board and discovering that he’s incapable of feeling pain. In “Getting It Back,” Gayle (Sabrina Kulka) returns all the love that Lendall (Loren Lee) has given her — in four stuffed duffle bags. And that’s just Act I. (Almost, Maine runs two hours with an intermission.)
Act II begins with “They Fell,” in which Randy (Frank Vassello) and Chad (Nathan Butera), two bearded, beer-drinking best buds, compare the degrees of humiliation they have suffered in dating women. Things turn raucous — and hilarious. Next is “Where It Went,” the most serious playlet in the show. Phil (Timothy Maher) and Marci (Laura Scribner) are a married couple who go ice skating to find the love that binds them, though everything seems to hinge on a missing shoe.
In “Story of Hope,” the titular Hope (Jennifer Cabral) ventures hundreds of miles to the house of a local (Ian Leahy), looking for a boyfriend she abandoned years before. It’s a tale of mixed signals and regrets, and Cabral is ineffably good — arguably the standout of the ensemble. Lastly, in “Seeing the Thing,” Dave (Thom Markee) gives Rhonda (Hilarie Tamar) a painting he made as a present; what it depicts is concealed till the end. That arrives soon enough: these lovebirds are both snowmobile enthusiasts, and their courtship is like a race.
The unincorporated (or “unorganized,” as one character calls it) fictional town of Almost, Maine is a major character and a structural thread in the play. Scenic designer Ellen Rousseau and lighting designer Stephen Petrilli have created a lovely, versatile, and gently abstract landscape onstage, with a rough-hewn hut and an occasional aurora borealis, a backdrop for love lost and found. It embodies the spirit of the place perfectly.
There are echoes of Provincetown in this end-of-the-Earth outpost in Maine, and Cariani developed the play at the Cape Cod Theatre Project in Falmouth. But the real connection to the Outer Cape is the freshness and eccentricity of the characters. Almost, Maine is a knuckleball of a love story — a celebration of feelings that seem strange and manifest themselves in even stranger ways. It’s about community and humanity. Is there a better Thanksgiving story than that?
18 for the Seesaw
The event: Almost, Maine, a play by John Cariani
The time: Through Dec. 8: Thursday through Saturday at 7 p.m.; Sunday at 2 p.m. (no show Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 28)
The place: Provincetown Theater, 238 Bradford St.
The cost: $61.11, including fees, at provincetowntheater.org or 508-487-7487
