perspective 78 p o r t l a n d monthly magazine huger foote Stage Sight Interview by olivia Gunn kotsishevskaya North Haven Island’s novelist and screenwriter Susan Minot debuts a new play this August that hits very close to home. I n her third novel, Evening (made in- to the 2007 film starring Vanessa Red- grave, Meryl Streep, and Claire Danes), Susan Minot tells the story of a dying woman whose memories whisk her back to a weekend spent on an island off the coast of Maine in her twenties. It’s a world famil- iar to Minot, who grew up summering with her family on North Haven, eventually liv- ing there full-time as a new mother. The is- land has been a constant in her life and to- day, at 61, she’s written a play for it. On Is- land will run from August 2-5 at Water- man’s Community Center. HowdidthestoryofOnIslandcometoyou? I’m on the drama committee at Water- man’s [Community Center on North Ha- ven], and David Hopkins, a committee member, had the idea of doing something oriented toward the island much like Is- lands: The Musical that was done. It’s very much rooted in the experience of the peo- ple on the island. The idea was to take some of the history of North Haven, some of the myths on the island, and put them into a dramatic collage-like story. I’ve al- ways wanted to write a play. In fact, I did write a one-woman show based on a mem- oir called The Little Locksmith by Katha- rine Butler Hathaway starring Linda Hunt [The Year of Living Dangerously, Solo: A Star Wars Story, NCIS: Los Angeles]. [Put- ting The Little Locksmith on stage] had been suggested to me by the famous John Wulp, who was the force behind North Haven theater for a long time. He was a Broadway producer who came to North Haven in the 1980s and put on the shows there. So, this isn’t technically my first play, but it’s the first one that’s more of a prop- er play. I found that for me to really get be- hind it, my orientation is more to the per- sonal and the present. Since I’ve lived both on the island as a year-rounder and a sum- mer person, I know a lot of aspects of the island. I decided to do a story that takes place on the island today in the summer. The day is August 3rd. It focuses on two is- land families; one is a year-round family and the other is a summer family. Isthereaconflictbetweenthetwofamilies? It’s not between the two families at all. It’s more about seeing the different versions of family conflict. They both have different versions of the same thing going on. “I’ve been visiting the island since I was born.”