Just Dessert
Almost, Maine feels more than enough, depending on one's appetite for sweets.
Almost, Maine feels more than enough, depending on one's appetite for sweets. John Cariani's evening of connected short plays, premiered locally by the Act II Playhouse, paints rural Maine as a magical place (the way Northern Exposure idealized Alaska) with love stories full of meet-cute situations and abstract ideas cutely made concrete.
In "Her Heart," Glory (Kathryn Petersen) carries her broken heart — brittle slate pieces — in a pouch and meets, ta-da, a repairman (John Morrison). "Sad and Glad" occurs in The Moose Patty, the town bar (cuter than Cicely's Brick) where the sad drink for free; Peter Schmitz plays a lost soul whose engaged ex (Alana Gerlach) has been "found" by an expert tracker.
The four actors regroup in other pairings, and all of the first act's vignettes have neat, happy endings. In "This Hurts," a man is introduced to love's pain (and pleasure) for the first time, and in "Getting It Back," a woman drags sacks of "all the love you gave me" to her boyfriend, but finds reason not to break up.
Cariani's fanciful literal takes on figurative ideas go overboard in the second half, when, in "They Fell," two dateless men discover love when it literally knocks them over. In "Where It Went," a couple verging on breakup wait for the other shoe to drop — and it does, groan-inducingly, from the sky. That and "Story of Hope" don't end happy, but "Seeing the Thing" more than compensates with a farcical romp about two inhibited snowsuit-bound snowmobilers.
Framing it all is a fablelike, largely silent story that ends the evening on a beautifully graceful note, accented by James Leitner's Aurora Borealis re-creation and Andrew Monheim's warm, cuddly music choices.
Individually, most of these short plays are clever; together, they become repetitive and predictable, curdling their sweet intentions with mind-numbing cuteness. Director Dan Kern presents them with great sincerity — he has no other choice — and the ensemble brings its multiple characters to life distinctly, but they cannot hide that this is a meal composed entirely of desserts.
Almost, Maine, Through April 8, Act II Playhouse, 56 East Butler Ave., Ambler, 215-654-0200, www.act2.org
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