At nine o'clock on a Friday night in the depths of winter in Almost, Maine, ordinary people have extraordinary moments.
Jason screws up his courage to give Lala a painting he made to declare his love. She believes she is meant to be everybody's pal, a tomboy, and can't see his intent at first. She can't recognize the image he has painted for her.
A woman demands all her love back from her boyfriend—she has wasted it, she thinks. She's giving hers back to him. She hauls it out in big red bags. He brings his out in a tiny red pouch.
A forlorn man slumps over a beer while a raucous bachelorette party harries his kind waitress. He thinks he will always be lonely.
Neighbors talk in a laundry room. One is very happy, she says, and one is impervious to pain, he says.
Each of the stories had a twist and a surprise that gave pleasure and sometimes poignancy. Friends discover they are in love. The hopeless find hope, the rejected find contentment.
Actor and Maine native John Cariana wrote the play about "people…who are honest and true. They live uncluttered lives, and they speak honestly, truly, and from the heart." Almost is a mythical composite of villages not big enough to become townships, hence the name, "Almost." It is just inside the southern range of the Northern Lights, and those lights are a character in "Almost." Each time a couple has a revelation, the lights flare in the black, star-studded sky. The simplicity of the set and four-person ensemble allowed the clever, witty interlocking vignettes to be savored. Cariana wove an undertone of melancholy and yearning into the tales of love, with a sprinkle of magical realism, Yankee-style.
Atlanta's Horizon Theatre hosts the play until March 23.
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