Introduction
Almost Maine is a wonderful heartfelt play by New York playwright John Cariani about the extraordinary tales of love that take place in the town of Almost, Maine. The assertion of this play is that all of these stories across the town take place at the stroke of 9:00 with the northern lights illuminating the slightly surreal, cold and northern night. John Cariani throws magical realism to the bittersweet love scenes in his play with original, sentimental and ultimately pleasant entertainment. Most of the characters in the play are eccentric, but all of them fit well into the small and strange town. Everyone in the play has their lives and stories and it is somewhat magical to see how character’s lives all connect with each other. The play has many romantic elements that bring forward heartfelt moments along with slight comedic atmosphere. It is never dull and leaves happier feeling in the thoughts of the audience.
Elements
Magic and Love are in the air for most of the play Almost, Maine by John Cariani. This play portrays the essential moments in relationships of 9 couples in a fictional town of Almost based in northern Maine. Their stories are told in small parts that explores the clashes of love and following of seared earth. One of the more charming and magical elements of the play interprets literally the common idioms that surround the relationships. One a cold and clear Friday night of mid-winter, while the northern lights float in the sky, residents of Almost find themselves falling in or out of love in strangest ways. And the life for people of Almost, Maine changes forever. The audience seems to experience the characters finding their counterparts, falling in love for the first time, falling out of love by getting their hearts wrecked, missing opportunities and regretting their mistakes. The play comes back to love and relationships between the characters. Thus, one of the main elements of this play is the emotion of love and how the characters struggle of love that relates and speaks directly to audience and everyone involved.
Another element that is common for all the stories in the play is time, day and location. All these stories turn out start at the stroke of 9 pm at night on of a cold Friday winter at a town Almost in Maine. While this is story of emotions that as characters sink into sadness as much as they do in the emotion of humour, another thing that is relevant in the story is the similarity of time, day and location in all stories. All these stories take place at 9 p.m. in different places at the remote northern village of Almost. All the stories in the romantic comedy have the element of magic surprising and delighting audience of all ages. Almost, Maine’ play is made up of many 10-minute scenes or cameos. These scenes have small elements of magic reflecting what love from the outside love does to people in their heart.
Conclusion
This romantic comedy presents a series of character parts that explores the thunderclap of love and results that follow. All the scenes happen in different locations all over the town of Almost, and each scene has its crisis, its emotional temperature and love at stake. And in every scene there are elements of emotions such as love, magic, humour, regret and sadness. The playwright John Cariani has thrown little magical realism to the 9 bittersweet love scenes in the play Almost, Maine—a quirky, sentimental and ultimately lovable entertainment.
