A Maine Girl • Maine Playwright • Maine History
An Interview with the playwright of Matinicus: A Lighthouse Play: Jenny Connell Davis
As PTC began pre-production for Matinicus: A Lighthouse Play, we spoke to playwright Jenny Connell Davis to get her insight on Abbie’s story, her take on this piece of Maine History, and her own experiences growing up here on the coast.
For someone who doesn’t know the story of Abigail Burgess, can you give a brief synopsis?
MATINICUS is the story of a teenage girl, a lighthouse keeper’s daughter, in 1850s Maine. Her father is hired to work the Matinicus lighthouse, so she and her family move to a windswept rock 25 miles out to sea. When the supply boat fails to come that winter, her father sails to the mainland to find food and avoid starvation. But in his absence, a huge storm blows up…and it’s up to Abigail to save her mother, her siblings, and herself.
What inspired you to write this play?
My mother gave me a book about Abigail Burgess years ago…but I didn’t read it. My kids were very little — too little for a chapter book — and the few precious moments I had were for writing, or doing laundry, or staring at the ceiling. My mother would ask “did you read that book about the lighthouse keeper’s daughter? Isn’t it great?” and I’d have to keep confessing that I hadn’t gotten to it yet. But I’d glance at the cover — the face of a girl who looked a little like I did, as a teenager, with a lighthouse in the background.
And then COVID hit. And in those first few months when we were so isolated, when all theater was at a standstill, when there was so much uncertainty and fear and things felt so bleak…a director friend of mine said “we have to be the lighthouse.” He meant that in dark times, art is a light that can show us the way forward, or the way back to each other. But I…took it more literally. I thought about the cover of that book, and I thought about what it means to be a lighthouse keeper — to work alone, basically round the clock, to take care of people you may never know or meet. And I thought: that feels like a story worth telling now.
Truth? I never read the book. I read a few pages, and realized that the voice of my heroine, that my version of the story, would be very different. So I read as much of Abigail’s real history as I could find, avoiding any fictional accounts, and then started writing.
What were some of the challenges you faced while writing Matinicus?
The two challenges were, ironically, both a lack of information and too much information. We do know plenty about Abigail, but not necessarily the details I needed to tell the story of that first year on Matinicus Rock. And there have been songs and multiple books written about her — mostly children’s stories — but it was clear to me that the voices of those authors would crowd my head, and make it harder for me to tell my version.
So…I did a bunch of factual research, wrote very sketchy notes, avoided all fictional accounts, and relied on the fact that I’m a Maine girl. I was raised on the coast, and so I allowed myself to draw on my own memories.
What did you learn from the first production? How has the play evolved over time?
I learned that Maine accents are very hard for non-Mainers! No, just kidding, I already knew that. We had an absolutely phenomenal team on the first production, working in a very small space, with a budget of almost zero. I learned just how hard this role is — the actress who played Abigail was incredibly accomplished, and really good with language, and she confessed that it took her over 100 hours to learn the part. You would never have known — she made it look easy! So I learned that there’s “nowhere to hide” in this play. Its simplicity is also its biggest challenge. One wrong word choice, one extra sentence, and you…just feel it. Writing this was mostly a process of stripping away.
If I’m honest, though, this was one of the fastest plays I ever wrote. I think as soon as I realized how much I was Abigail and Abigail was me, the story just rolled out of me.
It’s obviously a story about a young woman in the 1850’s in a very unique situation – how do you think the story resonates with a modern audience?
I don’t know! I hope it resonates! I’m anxious to hear HOW it resonates! I will say that this is about living in a place that is fiercely beautiful, but where the weather isn’t always our friend. And about those moments in life when forces much larger than us rise up to remind us both how small we are, and how strong we are. And I hope that feels like a reminder we can all use. I know it’s one I need, sometimes.
What excites you about presenting the play to a Maine audience? How do you feel that being a Mainer shows up in your work?
Anyone who knows me even a little bit knows I’m a Maine Girl. My folks live in the Lakes Region, I was raised in South Portland, my family is from Rangeley, Rockland, and Auburn. I have never been more thrilled than when Jonathan called, asking if I wanted to produce this play in Maine. It means the world to me to get to bring this play home, and to share it with people who are gonna understand the world of the play on a gut level. I’m also anticipating being called out on any inaccuracies or B.S. in a way that audiences in California (where the play premiered) couldn’t.
In this play, I think my being a Mainer is embedded in every word and character. I’ve got another play, about teenagers working in a coastal diner, where it’s pretty obvious too. In general, I think that Mainers have a funny blend of being straight shooters/outspoken and…paradoxically…keeping a lot of our thinking to ourselves. I know that in most of my plays, whether or not they’re set in Maine, you see something similar — people saying a LOT, but still a lot you need to read between the lines.