Northern Maine novelist Cathie Pelletier’s fictional town of Mattagash — loosely based on the town of Allagash — is being brought to life by a theater program in a nearby community in the St. John Valley region.
The novel is being adapted into a one-act play that will be performed during the upcoming Maine Drama Festival in Brewer. In addition to the one-act play, Fort Kent’s theater program also puts on a musical and non-musical production each year.
Last year, the program performed a musical originally written by Fort Kent theater director Doug Clapp, with music composed by former Fort Kent Community High School teacher Steve Vonderheide.
For this play, Clapp said he was searching for inspiration and looking through his bookshelf when he saw a copy of “The Funeral Makers,” Pelletier’s breakthrough novel and the first of her several books set in Mattagash. From that moment, he said everything clicked and he decided to adapt the book into a one-act play.
“That book represents this valley in a lot of ways,” he said. “It’s from here. It’s the most famous book from the valley. And when Cathie came out with it, it was hugely popular. It was worldwide.”
The Funeral Makers was translated into ten languages. Pelletier’s work as an author has also received critical acclaim, including praise from authors such as Stephen King and Kurt Vonnegut as well as the Washington Post, Boston Globe, and New Yorker.
Pelletier, who was born in Allagash, lived in Tennessee when “The Funeral Makers” was written. She later moved to Canada and lived in Toronto and Quebec and, most recently, moved back to Allagash in the St. John Valley.
Two novels written under the pseudonym K.C. McKinnon, “Candles on Bay Street” and “Dancing at the Harvest Moon,” were adapted into movies. But this will be the first time any of Pelletier’s work is adapted into a one-act play.
Pelletier said it was humbling to see these adaptations.
“It was lovely to see that on TV,” Pelletier said. “A friend of mine — a British writer — said to me, ‘Do you realize how many people got jobs because of what you thought up one day?’ And I’ve always kept that in mind.”
She’s written about eight different scripts for “The Funeral Makers,” and said she has been in talks with director Doug Liman, known for directing “Swingers” and “The Bourne Identity,” for several years about adapting the book into a film.
And while Pelletier has made numerous changes in some iterations of the script, she said Liman preferred that it remain as true to the original book as possible.
Clapp’s version of the script also remains true to the book.
“She sent me the last screenplay, and I said ‘She’ll do anything to this novel,’” Clapp joked. “And here I am thinking, ‘This is a famous book. I’m going to try to be true to it as much as possible.’”
Pelletier said she was open to any changes that Clapp would make in cutting the novel down to a short play. In her experience with screenplay writing, everything has followed a three-act structure.
“That’s why I’m glad for them doing what they do,” she said.
As part of the adaptation, a narrator character was added, played by senior Sadie Cairns.
“It was a brilliant idea that [Clapp] had to make this novel work better in 40 minutes,” Pelletier said.
Cairns said at first that she had a difficult time getting into the narrator character.
“I want the narrator to have a heart,” she said. “I want the narrator to be a character just like everybody else.”
Pelletier complimented Cairns on her ability to bring the character to life.
“It’s lovely,” she said of Cairns’ performance.
Jered Babin, also a senior, plays Ed Lawler.
“He’s a school principal from Massachusetts,” Babin said of the character. “He got dragged to Maine, and he doesn’t like it. I don’t think he likes being a school principal, either. He’s kind of miserable and takes that out on his family.”
Before going down to perform in the annual competition next month, the play will also be performed on Feb. 27, 28 and March 1 at the Fox Auditorium on the University of Maine at Fort Kent campus. Tickets are $8 for adults and $5 for high school and college students.
Pelletier said it’s nice to see a group so close to her hometown of Allagash bringing her novel, which is set in the same area, to life.
“This was part of my growing up,” she said. “Coming to Fort Kent was like coming to Oz back in the 1960s. We got down here once a month, if we were lucky. I’m just honored that they’re doing it, and I rest easy that they’re going to do a wonderful job with this man at the helm.”