A ridiculously clever play about love in its many ways, shapes, forms, and sizes. Everything takes place at 9:00 on a cold winter night in Northern Maine. The small town is called “Almost, Maine” because it was at the verge of becoming organized yet it never got to full development, so it’s just “Almost, Maine”.
The play was a series of eleven short scenes, divided into two acts. The first act contained the prologue, acted by Mert Albeyoglu and Jeanne Cavil as Pete and Ginette correspondingly, where they are having a wonderful time and Pete reveals to Ginette that they are not as close as can be unless Ginette goes around the globe to fully complete the circumference of the Earth so that they both can be as close to each other as can be, and without hesitation Ginette exits the stage, with no explanation.
Following the prologue came the heart warming scene of “Her Heart”, where East, a repairman, played by Nasir Al-Sabah promises to fix the guilty heart of a hurting widow called Glory, who was played by Laura Voytko.
Then came “Sad and Glad” a scene where a former couple encounter each other and the man finds out that his ex-girlfriend is going to marry another man the following day.
“This hurts” was the next scene where Juan Guerra played Steve, young man who could not feel pain, but first felt pain once he was kissed on the forehead by Marvalyn, who was played by Darin Kutlay.
Afterwards came the ingeniously hilarious skit titled “Getting It Back”, about a same sex couple, Gayle and Kendall, who have been with each other for 11 years and almost broke up once. Gayle, played by Jessikah Morton, storms into Kendall’s (Dakota DeVore’s) apartment, demanding Kendall give back the love Gayle gave her back, as it was a Friday night and she was feeling unusually lonely for someone with a partner. But Kendall confused, fixes the mood when she surprises Gayle with a beautiful ring after thinking about popping the question for a long time.
For a play with these many scenes you would think there would would be many mistakes, with many rough transitions. But this play performed by students of the Exeter Summer program was the exception.The show was entertaining until the last minute and the transitions were clean all throughout Act One and Two.
Act Two began with the “Interlogue” played only by Pete, since Ginette had left him in the Prologue with no explanation.
Then this act was followed by “They Fell”, featuring two buddies named Chad and Randy, drinking beer, and discussing their horrible dates with their respective girlfriends. Then they quickly realize that the only thing that made sense to them in this world was sharing time with each other. Then they go on to profess their love for each other — which ends in dramatic applause by the audience.
This was followed by amazingly scripted scenes titled “Where It Went,” which was played by Chadwick Ho and Lauren Isaacson, and “The Story of Hope” played by Gabrielle Steg and Tommaso Cardella. Ending the play was the scene “Seeing The Thing” acted by Lauren Kearl and Kaan Celik. Then came the epilogue, which brought everything full circle when Pete was about to leave and Ginette threw a snowball over Pete, to catch his attention and demonstrate to him that she had traveled the world just to be as close as possible to him. Then Pete and Ginette ran towards each other and hugged until the lights went off.
A word to describe it emphatically is success.
Exeter student Aaliyah Bautista,16, said, “When I went to the play I expected it to be really corny. But while I was sitting there and watching it every little thing connected to each other. And I liked the theme of love in every way, shape or form.
Another student, Angel Henderson,15, said , “If i could rate the play it would be 10 out of 10. Definitely would see it see it again, even though I saw it twice.”
“Almost, Maine” can more accurately be re-titled “Almost, Perfection!”