Theater: The Gym at Judson / 243 Thompson Street, New York, NY, 10012
Synopsis:
It’s winter in Almost, Maine. Salty waitresses, lost visitors, tough and not-so-tough women and men crack open some beer, start their snowmobiles, pitch a tent, and gather under the northern lights to try to make sense of this strange thing called love. Funny, sexy, sad, and ever-searching, the people of Almost, Maine are stalked by dreams and fears alike as they ante up again and again determined to get past the “almost” to capture the real. Love is local and the world is strange in this midwinter night’s dream. The Transport Group production will be the play’s first New York revival; playwright and Tony Award nominee John Cariani will be featured in the cast.
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February 5, 2014: Almost, Maine, that darling of regional theaters, now back in New York, is basically a higher-concept and more clever version of Hollywood hits like Love Actually and Valentine’s Day. But this rom-com leans on shrewd writing rather than star power in its nine interlocking love stories, all happening in the same New England town on the same moonless night.
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February 5, 2014: If you think New York is cold in February, try Almost, Maine, John Cariani's 2006 play, now receiving its first off-Broadway revival with Transport Group. The Gym at Judson has been turned into a winter wonderland. The floor is covered wall to wall with something that looks a lot like asbestos but is also vaguely reminiscent of snow. The stage area features a heavy coat of something considerably slicker. It's the kind of synthetic snow spectacle usually only afforded by Russian dictators, and when it begins to fall, lightly dusting the actors' hair, it is truly magical. Still, with all the unrequited love and arctic chill on stage, I'm glad to be on this side of the fourth wall.
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February 5, 2014: The fictional town of Almost, Maine is buried in snow. The play, a series of nine vignettes about love, is knee-deep in whimsy. Fortunately, the show isn’t a white-out of cutesy. The script packs wit, earns its laughs and, like love, surprises you. Those assets help explain why the show, which ran briefly Off-Broadway amid mixed reviews in 2006, has become one of the most-produced works in the U.S.
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February 5, 2014: Almost, Maine, returning triumphantly to New York City for the first time since it flopped here in 2006, is one of those plays that has reached such legendary status that it’s a must-see for the theatrically inclined regardless of its actual content. The play itself, by John Cariani, who is one of the four cast members in the Transport production at the Gym at Judson, is made up of a dozen mostly two-character sketches — all of them taking place at the same time in various locales in Almost, Maine, which the program describes as “a small town in Northern Maine that doesn’t quite exist.” The production is minimally designed, the stage covered with fake snow, and the lighting meant to re-create the magical feeling of the Northern Lights.
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February 5, 2014: New Yorkers who haven't yet gotten their fill of snow should hightail it over to the Gym at Judson, where, in Sandra Goldmark's set design for Almost, Maine, the white stuff is omnipresent. Goldmark has created a wall-to-wall winter exterior that contains little arrangements of furniture. It snows on the ironing boards, it snows on the end tables, it snows on the just and the unjust alike. This surreal snowscape, exquisitely lit with carefully calibrated sidelight by R. Lee Kennedy, is a critical element in Jack Cummings III's production. Above all, Almost, Maine is a mood piece; unless you buy into playwright John Cariani's peculiar mix of romantic melancholy and fey comedy, you're going to feel very, very chilly.
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