The play Almost, Maine by John Cariani is a series of nine short plays surrounding love and relationship dynamics, specifically the sadness and hilarity of love. My first impressions of the play were that it was pretentious and trying to be something more profound than it was. However, as I kept reading, it grew on me. When I finished reading, I found it actually quite endearing. The play is constantly on the edge of being incredibly cheesy. I think what saved it for me were the author’s notes at the end. It was easy to tell that the author put a lot of heart into the play, and was not as pretentious as I first presumed. In one of these notes, Cariani writes, “this play is almost bad. It goes the line”. I couldn’t agree with this more. It relies so much on the genuinity of human emotion, that if performed too dramatically or without any drama, it could be just awful. But there is beauty in that, it fits the title well, it’s almost bad, but it’s not. (Perhaps the play should be renamed Almost, Bad). The play is quite funny, I laughed out loud a few times, and at the same time it is quite sad. And even though it’s strange and cliché at times, I think it is worth reading or going to see. It’s unique, and very profound at times. It’s a beautiful interpretation of the complexities of love.