Southern Lehigh High School is well-known throughout the Lehigh Valley for its theater program that revolves around the talent of numerous students devoted to creating a phenomenal theatrical experience for the audience. Under the direction of theater teacher Mr. Matthew Wehr, this year’s fall play, “Almost Maine,” was no exception to this excellence.

In nine scenes the play expresses underlying themes of love and heartbreak set in a magical town called Almost. The town name sets the play’s central motif, “almost.” Whether things are almost right, or almost wrong, nothing is what it seems.

The show included typical clichés that represent love, as well as incorporated a fair share of puns. For example, the second scene provided a punchline when Glory (Ava Scattergood) said goodbye to her previous husband West, and opened her broken heart to repairman East (Orlando Crooms). In hindsight, you would believe that this was an obvious directional joke, but the actors portrayed the scene well, forcing the audience to wait until the very end of the scene to put the pieces together.

This was also done very well in a handful of other scenes, like when the common idiom “wait for the other shoe to drop” was on display in a sorrowful scene portrayed by Marci (Mary Felix) and Phil (Taso Rubino), where the married couple argues over the unobservant nature of Phil. He has been missing the little things in his marriage, particularly their wedding anniversary, thus leading to Marci feeling isolated and lonely. The scene provided a quality piece of comedic relief for the audience to enjoy amidst the heartbreak when a shoe dropped from the rafters to break up the argument.

Some scenes proved to be more physically painful than others, with some characters being bashed in the head with an ironing board or literally “falling” in love. Both scenes were perfectly executed, and authentic acting was the backbone of their performance. The scene including Marvalyn (Jill Werbisky) and Steve (Jake Finkbeiner) led to both characters discovering the true meaning of love through a couple painful whacks with the ironing board.

Shelly (Colette Curry) and Deena (Mckenzie Hagenbuch) followed with another painful scene two scenes later, with both actresses taking numerous falls across the stage as they fell in love with each other. The duo was able to accurately express how it would feel to keep love a secret from yourself as well as others.

Despite the complicated nature of the play, the acting done by each person was exceptional. Once again, Southern Lehigh theatre was able to pull off a difficult show that provided the theatrical excellence we all expected.