Review Preview: Almost Maine

Bravo to the Bickford for a good choice and good execution on John Cariani's "Amost Maine." Always enjoy my visits there, and if you haven't seen the changes at the Morris Museum, you need to check them out. It continues to be a curiously well-kept secret that Morris County has a substantial museum that ranks with the very best in the state. The expanded music box exhibition, which we've seen bits and pieces of in the past, is spectacular. Lots of touring exhibits come and go as well, so keep in touch with them at www.morrismuseum.org.

Anyway, here's the draft of my review, which pubs Friday in TGIF. As always, you get it here first.

And for free.

I'm not sure we have this cross-platform thing completely licked.

Theater review
If you want to go:
What: “Almost Maine”
When: through Feb 17
Where: Bickford Theatre, Morris Museum, 6 Normandy Heights Road, Morris Township
How much: $30, $28 seniors, $27 museum members, $15 students 18 and younger
Info: (973) 971-3706; www.bickfordtheatre.org

By WILLIAM WESTHOVEN
Daily Record
The 2008 theater season in New Jersey is off to a busy start, with big stars, world premieres and an Oscar and Tony-worthy classic all within easy driving distance.
The Bickford Theatre at the Morris Museum counters with the revival of a relatively obscure romantic comedy where the lovers spend most of the evening dressed for the Iditarod.
The very idea is so crazy—and the show is so enjo yable—that it just might work.
Certainly, the large opening-night audience last Friday evening for “Almost Maine” showed their approval for John Cariani’s charming collection of nine unusual love stories, featuring four terrific actors. Most are funny, although at least one starts sadly and ends sadder.
Cariani’s point is that romance always seems to involve a measure of pain, but the author’s clever writing allows us to absorb—and appreciate—his tough lessons while leaving our romantic idealism intact.
He accomplishes his mission with sneaky humor and little twists that adds delightful abstraction to each sketch. It’s as though Rod Serling decided to write an entire extended episode of the old “Love, American Style” TV series.
Cariani’s twilight zone is the town of Almost, Maine, in the far northwest of New England’s frontier territory. It’s really not even a town, which we learn in the first scene.
“To be a town, you’ve got to get organized, and we never got around to it,” a local fellow named East (Michael Irvin Pollard) informs a strange woman who’s camping on his land without permission.
The visitor, Glory (Liz Zazzi), tells East that her heart is broken in 19 pieces. Fortunately for Glory, East is a repairman.
The next scene presents a sad fellow (Daniel Robert Sullivan) whose broken romance, and tragically misspelled tattoo, lead to a surprisingly happy ending. The first act concludes with Pollard as a man who cannot feel pain, and a couple who argue until their love quite literally gives them a soft place to land.
The second act isn’t quite as funny, but Cariani continues to make thoughtful commentary on love. It’s amusing to watch two people who can’t stand up when they fall in love, but bittersweet because neither wants to admit their feelings. In the next scene, neither husband nor wife wants to admit they are miserable. They’re followed by a woman determined to find her lost love, only to learn she waited too long.
It’s almost enough to ruin the warm, fuzzy feelings we banked in the first act, but Cairiani wisely brings us full-circle. The last sketch gives us as longtime friends who finally connect romantically. Their consummation, though, has to hurdle one more obstacle, not a wardrobe malfunction so much as a wardrobe conspiracy.
Cariani closes the book by concluding a prologue that featured Sullivan and Janice Kildea as young romantics with opposing opinions of what it means to be close. Like the best of “Almost Maine,” these bumper scenes are delightfully offbeat, but not so abstract that the most casual observer won’t get it and appreciate the sentiment.
All four actors are well-known on professional stages in North Jersey and can add several lines to their respective resumes with this single show. Regardless of geographical similarity, the many characters they play in “Almost Maine” demand a wide range of skills and every one of them is up to the challenge.
Director Wendy Liscow, another veteran of New Jersey and New York stages, nurtured the actors, and her production, with smooth confidence. The fast-paced show moves smoothly from scene to scene and mood to mood, while the actors appear comfortable in every circumstance.
Scenic designer Jim Bazewicz gives them an appropriately sparse, snowy landscape, with the kind of star-filled sky that attracts lovers and astronomers in equal number.
From Paper Mill Playhouse (“The Miracle Worker”) to Playwright’s Theatre (the world premiere of newsman Jim Lehrer’s “Flying Crows”) to McCarter Theatre (premiering Edward Albee’s “Me, Myself and I”), there’s plenty of obvious choices right now for theater fans. Hopefully, they won’t overlook this charming and worthy show set on the outskirts of U.S. territory.