A Personal Review of the Play Almost Maine Put On by Diablo Valley College

Review, Pages 5 (1103 words)

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"Almost Maine' I saw the play "Almost Maine" put on by Diablo Valley College on April 9". This play showed a series of nine different relationships, each relationship on stage for 10-15 minutes. Throughout the scenes were broken hearts, lost love, strangers falling in love, proposals, fear, joy, and anger. The play begins with a couple on a date very awkwardly sitting far apart and not talking. The woman keeps inching closer to the man and the scene ends when he says the closest two people can be is as far apart as possible and they walk off on opposite ends of the stage.

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Each scene has a different couple, so next there is a woman on a stranger's property and he falls in love with her after a few lines. We witness a woman at her bachelorette party see her ex- boyfriend and he speaks of his love for her but she has to reveal that she is engaged and leaves him to go back to her party.

A friendship that has gone on for years ends up in a sexual relationship.

A woman who demands her love back from her boyfriend and he gives in back in the form of a proposal. Also, two male friends discussing failed attempts at dating and one of the friends realizes that their dating lives aren't working because he thinks they are supposed to be together. At first his friend is furious that he revealed this and ruined their perfectly good friendship. After leaving and thinking he comes back and the two realize they may actually have feelings for the other.

Nine different relationships are put on display and each depict a different love, some lost, some found. The play took place in Almost, Maine, a town not quite a city because nobody ever went to the state to form a city, but still considered a town by the people living there, so it's almost a city. There was snow and trees creating a winter forest theme that fit with the setting of a cold winter in Maine. For each couple that contained a new setting in the town of Almost the crew brought out what was needed for each scene.

Everything seemed to be on rollers so things were easily brought out and changed for each scene. There were a few scenes that included the outside of homes and those were rolled on and off stage, each one sitting in the forest and they seemed to fit with the small town in the forest feel. All of the actors were appropriately dressed. Each of them dressed for a cold winter night if they were outside, one man woke up in the middle of the night in a warm pajamas and a robe, a woman flew in from California and was dressed in a long coat that looked like she came from a big city, and the woman who was out for her bachelorette party looked like she was dressed for a party. The sound was excellent; I didn't hear any issues with it. April 9 also happened to be the first time DC was offering a sign-language interpreted showing of a play and there was a large group of deaf people and students who are in sign language classes there. At the end of each scene the lights went down and the actors exited the stage, the crew would come out and change out the scene. They were all very fast and there was little wait time between scenes. Each actor did a great job in knowing their lines and playing their part.

The chemistry was evident during each scene and they all seemed to have connections with their partner. However, one scene just seemed awkward. It was between a man who felt no pain and a woman that was in a controlling relationship. The man clearly did not have great social skills, he kept referring everything back to "well my brother says" and he assumes everything his brother says is the truth. The woman was supposed to end up falling in love with him and he would learn that love is not a bad and painful thing but the whole scene felt awkward and there didn't seem to be a connection between the two of them. I think this was an excellent play that showed quite a few stereotypes of what love is like or what people think it is like. Each of the stories were different and none of them really tied together to make one cohesive play, instead it was just a few smaller scenes to show the overall theme of love.

The play was engrossing, each of the scenes were short enough to keep my interest and I was left wanting the next scene to see what was going on in the lives of the next couple. The scene where Gayle, played by Monica Minix, goes to Lendall's home, played by Josh T Moles, to break up was by far my favorite. She goes in the middle of the night to give Lendall back bags filled with all the love he gave her and the breakup is extremely dramatic as she demands her love back from him. They are yelling and fighting and he comes back with her love in a tiny box. She wonders how she could have only given him such a small amount in return for all he gave her and he gets down on his knee to tell her he exchanged all of her love for a ring. They end up getting engaged and the entire crowd was applauding them as if they were congratulating them on an actual engagement.

The cast was multicultural there were people of all different ethnicities being represented. The story was based on love however and we do see topics of sexuality explored, specifically in the scene with Randy, Andre Szarmach, and Chad, Ken Davis. These men have lived their entire lives as best friends who are constantly searching for love in other women and coming up empty. Once one admits that the reason may be that they are supposed to be together because when they are together they are truly happy the other is furious. He says that is not how things are supposed to be, he runs off furious at his friend for ruining a good thing. He ends up coming back and thinking maybe his friend is right, but we never see how this scene ends. "Almost Maine" was a great play that explored the different types of love and heartbreak that are witnessed by people all throughout the world.