Romantic Comedy Witty Enough to Melt Spring Snow

Like love, when you’re in “Almost, Maine,” you’re in unorganized territory. As the handyman from the make believe town of Almost, the setting for John Cariani’s whimsical play, points out: “It’s not gonna be on your map, cause it’s not an actual town, technically. . . See, to be a town, you gotta get organized.  And we never got around to getting organized, so. . . we’re just Almost.”

Set beneath the electrifying hues of the Aurora Borealis, in the frozen pine forests of the most north by northeastern parts of the USA, “Almost, Maine” is about love and the wild, unorganized, territory of the heartland that it inhabits.

Directed by Jeff Knapp, the Barn Theatre’s spring production of “Almost Maine” has a cast of four who play nineteen characters trying to navigate the unchartered landscape of love.

Cariani’s off beat setting and insightful dialogue builds eccentric characters of surprising depth. Through a series of vignettes, the playwright employs a variety of highly theatrical dramatic devices to create what one comes to recognize as a typical Friday night almost anywhere.

With plenty of comedy, romance in “Almost, Maine” is both farcical and sometimes downright absurd.

Four veteran community theatre actors breathe life into scenes of young love, old love, lost love, love found, new love, and love conquered. The performances elicit many laughs and quite a few “oohs” and “aahs” from the audience.

The difficulty for the performers in “Almost, Maine,” is in making each of the multiple characters portrayed distinct. All four actors succeed better in some vignettes than others. Of particular note is Bridget Burke Weiss in the vignette, Story of Hope, Craig Zimmermann and Tom Morrissey in They Fell, and Jessica Phelan in Seeing the Thing.

The incidental music, a score, written for “Almost, Maine” by composer Julian Fleisher, is reminiscent of the best of Tom Bodett. It both grounds the action in the real world while playfully moving the sometimes fanciful story forward.

One of the most interesting choices in The Barn’s production is the set. Through Jonathan Wentz’s unique design, the audience is transported to a forest in Maine so tangible that one can almost smell the scent of pine. Yet, the evocative and theatrical archway inserted into the forest allows for a play of phantasmagorical vignettes to come to life in the middle of the snow covered landscape.

Perfectly complimenting the set is Richard Currie’s dramatic lighting design which inserts the mysteries of the northern lights into the moonless sky over “Almost, Maine.”

Overall, “Almost, Maine” is charming.

“Almost Maine” runs through April 2 at The Barn Theatre, 32 Skyline Drive in Montville, NJ.  Performances are Friday and Saturday at 8:00 p.m., with a 2:00 p.m. matinee on April 2. Tickets are $15 ($14 for seniors/students for matinees only)