Well, I have started a new directorial project. It’s called ALMOST, MAINE, and it’s the perfect quirky comedy to chase the post-holiday doldrums away. What with misspelled tattoos, bags of love, swinging ironing boards and pointillist-wannabe paintings. There are some wonderful characters in this piece—think Northern Exposure moves East. [I’ve started rehearsals early so we can all get through the holiday season with some sanity and not be fried by the time opening rolls around in mid-January.... It could happen.]
I’m still in my exploratory phase, though: reading the piece over several times, jotting down questions to ask the actors about their characters, researching things related to the piece. Stuff like that.
I thought this was going to be a light-hearted comedy—which it is for the most part—but the more I read the piece, the more significant the title becomes. The vignettes in the play deal with the “almost-ness” of relationships. And, to an extent, how fragile they are. Some couples are at the beginning of their partnership and others are frustrated with the stagnation of theirs. Still others are watching theirs slip out of their grasp. Pretty frickin heavy stuff for a comedy, right?
And the play is funny—the playwright has a very warped sense of humor. Just the kind I like. I tend to see the random absurdity of it all—the almost crazy. And so much of our existence is “almost.” It can be a little daunting at times. Those missed moments or opportunities. But you can’t dwell on those, you’ve got to chalk it up to experience and look for new things to explore or accomplish.
Yep—I’m becoming fascinated by the “almostness” of life.
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