Review: ALMOST, MAINE at The Harold Greenspoon Auditorium—The Intimacy of Winter

Almost, Maine has been mounted by the Côte St Luc dramatic society. Directed by Aisa Cameron, with assistance from Justin Johnson, and produced by Mitchell Brownstein and Mitch Kujavsky, it ran from February 20th to 24th in the Harold Greenspoon Auditorium. The 2-time Montreal English Theatre Award winning dramatic society portrayed a cast of characters from a place in Maine big enough to be home, but not big enough to really be a town. The place, affectionately called Almost, is host to many almosts-people on the brink of love, who either make it or do not.

Set designer Rachel-Anne Germinario has brought us a truly beautiful, simplistic modular set. Most of the action is facilitated by drifts of snow on wheels, which are easily moved around. They manage to be both convincing as drifts of snow, and ethereally beautiful: they glow with a gentle pinkish light from within. This evokes the way warmth works in the winter: frigid on the surface, but glowing pink and warm and alive at the core.

The winter-ness of the entire play is completely believable, through excellent costume choices and convincing small-town dialogue. At the end of February, which is the hardest part of my year every time, it was nice to see a depiction of winter that reminded me that love still exists-even when it seems like the world has gone completely dark.

The huge cast of Almost, Maine means that there were people of a wide variety of ages and experience levels in the cast. There was also the decision made to mic the actors with small face mics. My major critique of that decision is that physical closeness is the easiest way to signal intimacy. Acting is hard, and it's hard to convey intimacy convincingly, even if you can touch and kiss your fellow actors. The microphone decision made it hard to do that without having to worry about feedback, or the huge flat thunk as mics bounced off of the face of your scene partner.

There were only a few characters I felt genuinely experienced love in Almost, Maine. Randy (Matthew Mckeown) and Chad (Ed Lavasseur), are two beer-drinking small-town buds who come to the slow, drunken realization that maybe the person you should be with is the person who makes you feel happy to be alive, even if they're not at all who you expected. Similarly, Dave (Calder Levine) and Rhonda (Natasha Lilliman) are two friends who ski-doo together, and are happy with that as a friendship, until Dave admits to Rhonda that he wants something more. I knew they loved each other before they said it, and not even because of Levine's deeply convincing, wistful puppy dog glances. The love I think I saw there was genuine friendship, which is almost more compelling than their romantic storyline, and significantly more compelling than the relationships between most of the other characters. If love isn't friendship, plus something else-if it's based on some kind of strange ineffable feeling that is either there or is not, then I'm not completely sure I believe in it.

Going back to Randy and Chad, there is an ease to the way they speak on stage that I am realizing is somewhat rare with stage acting. I went to see The History of Sexuality at Place des Arts this summer, and realized then that the most compelling acting was when everyone was playing drunk. Instead of a sloshy all-over-the-place-ness, the actors achieved an ease of expression, which I think was also played up by the fact that the queer characters depicted were also trying to play up how gay they were.

It's an oft-cited rule that in acting, it is always better to start with too much feeling and then withdraw as needed. I have, so far, not seen many people on stage who manage to play convincing drunks-just people who are suddenly more engaging to watch.

I think the conclusion I'm drawing is that actors everywhere should try to come across as more drunk, and more gay.

While Almost, Maine has finished its run at the Harold Greenspoon Auditorium, you can read more about the Côte St-Luc Dramatic Society at their website.

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