The Main(e) Event

Many confuse Maine for a northern region of Massachusetts. But in Chad Beckim’s new, semi-autobiographic drama, The Main(e) Play, he gives the state an important role as the point of conflict in addition to the setting within the story. The specific location does not limit Beckim, and the issues he addresses of home and homecoming extend far beyond the cozy living room where the entire play transpires.

Directed by Robert O’Hare, The Main(e) Play opens the Venetian blinds and allows the audience to peak into the lives of two brothers, Shane, played by Alexander Alioto, and Roy, played by Mad Men’s Michael Gladis. The audience never sees the characters’ lives beyond the living room, so the attention is concentrated on what happens inside of the very room that epitomizes family and home. This creates a subjectivity and dependence on Roy and Shane’s relation of events that drives the audience’s interest in their narration.

Shane, an aspiring actor working out of New York City, returns back to Maine for Thanksgiving weekend only to find the locks changed. From the minute the audience meets Shane, his struggle to classify the house as his home begins. Roy still lives in their childhood home along with his young son, Jay, who is never seen, but almost always heard obnoxiously banging away at his drums in the background. Jay’s presence is also sensed in the room, for aside from the worn coach, chair, and coffee table, the carpet is cluttered with toys, games, and Legos that Shane’s feet cannot seem to avoid.

During this long weekend, Shane vacillates between seeming comfortable in his observation that nothing has changed, and bemoaning how those around him keep making the same mistakes. Roy points out that Shane is just as guilty of that habit, as is evidenced by the flare-up of a past romance with his ex-girlfriend, Jess. The brothers—at times reminiscent, at times critical of every minute detail of each other’s lives—are able to realistically depict the desire of one sibling to care for the other, and how that too often consists of harsh judgments and biting denigration.

Costume designer Whitney Locher’s choice of collared shirts and tailored jackets for Shane posed against Roy’s flannel shirts and wool sweaters help to visually depict the sibling rivalry. Similarly, the contrast between the two brothers is made audible in Roy’s heavy Maine accent. Shane’s total lack of an accent draws further distinction between him and the other characters, all of whom speak with a believable Northeast inflection.

Gladis especially does an excellent job of adopting the characteristic Maine traits, without allowing his portrayal of Roy to seem stereotypical or foolish. Alioto, however, seems to struggle to transform Shane’s ambivalent feelings about his situation into a cohesive personality, leaving the audience more confused than sympathetic.

The issues raised in Shane and Roy’s banter are ones that all college students can relate to—what is the experience of returning home once your life is not only different, but also somewhere else? Each character struggles with how they have or haven’t changed, their regrets, and the problems they see in others. Shane is nicknamed “Hurricane Shane,” but it is never really addressed whether this is because of the destruction created by each of his Maine visits, or because everyone else’s lives were already in chaos—exemplified by the living room that looks as though a toy store exploded—and they resent the clarity that Shane brings.

The strength of the play is that no character is completely innocent. Shane, too, is guilty of trying to put his own problems on others, initially expressing his strong desire to be home, but then realizing that “this place just makes me sad.”

Whether students head back to Maine, California, or the Upper East Side over vacations, all have come to realize that the concept of “home” and the role they play there only becomes more complicated with time. The Main(e) Play is an entertaining exposition of the complexities inherent to the idea of “home,” and is recommended regardless of where one’s home may be.