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Saturday, October 20, 2012

Love Surreal

Jake Cole and Leah David in "Almost, Maine." Daily Eastern News photo by Zachary White.

Last night, Matt and I took in the EIU Theatre Department’s Almost, Maine, a romantic comedy written by John Cariani and directed by Jenni Passig. It’s a series of variety show-like vignettes about love, but smarter than a sitcom with interesting surreal aspects — love can be a physical object, people can literally fall in love, and so forth.
A solid cast — especially with accomplished performances from Jake Cole and Benjamin Kennedy — made for an evening of brisk fun.
Matt Mattingly chimes in: "Almost, Maine" performed by EIU students at Doudna was quite the show. Funny and moving, the segmented production looked at love from damn near every fathomable angle: from struggling to tell a friend one's true romantic feelings, waffling on the "Big Question" for too long only to find the questioner has moved on, finding out the ex you still love is engaged, to the painful mutual realization your relationship is loveless...it was hard not to find something to which you could relate. 
That couldn't be done effectively if that cast didn't perform effectively but by and large, those kids were brilliant. 
Bravo.

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