Almost Maine: pulls on the heartstrings

Pathos in a play is like salt: the right amount adds savour, too much just makes everything taste like salt. Almost Maine manages to find a good balance with it's gentle take on the closeness and the distance of love. Written as a series of interwoven two-actor vignettes, it never takes itself too seriously, and at its best pulls on the heartstrings. Gently.

The staging is simple, with some clever technical innovations provided by lighting designer Darren Boquist, including a subtle laser-light starscape during the blackouts that should immediately be stolen by anyone setting their play outside. While the tech crew did their best to smooth them out, it's difficult to get around blackouts in a vignette-based play, and as a result each vignette is digested by the audience as a micro-play in itself. And though all the vignettes are engaging, some of them crackle more than others.

Almost Maine is an Actors Equity approved co-op, basically a 'for the love' production with a cast of solid actors. Andrew Coghlan as always brings a beautiful innocence and presence to his work, and if his disparate characters feel similar, he's so likeable that he's instantly forgiven. Michael Kopsa has warmth, confidence, and the kind of voice you could listen to read the phone book, and he's strongest in his understated character for "Where it Went" in the second act opposite Jennifer Copping, who plays all her characters with an engaging sensitivity. You can't help but laugh at Victoria Bidewell's never-been-kissed tough small town girl in "Seeing the Thing," opposite John Shaw's genial everyman. The show stealer for me was Gina Leon, her performance in "Story of Hope" mixes intense vulnerability and unselfconscious humour with a wonderfully specific physical life. Pure electricity, exactly what I hope for when I go to the theatre.

Some of the theatrical conventions, including one where characters fall dramatically prone while 'falling in love', are a little flat. I would have liked to see more variation in the style, several of the scenes verged between naturalism and broad comedy without quite landing satisfactorily on either. It's a little quibble though, in a lovely gentle little play.

My verdict? Go see Almost Maine. Bring a date.

"Almost Maine"
by John Cariani
directed by Stellina Rusich
presented by Jeezum Crow Equity Co-op
at Studio 1398 (formerly Playwrights Theatre Centre) on Granville Island
February 9th-26th