Second Skin Theatre are set to perform "Shakespeare Incorporated" by Don Fried on March 2nd - 21st at Rosemary Branch Theatre London N1. In the run-up to performance on Friday 12th February I interviewed Don Fried, the playwright, on writing the play.

INTERVIEW WITH DON FRIED BY ALAIN ENGLISH FOR SECOND SKIN THEATRE

How did writing the play come about?

I was writing a book with my son, and he bought me a biography of Shakespeare by Bill Bryson. In the last chapter of the book, the first half dealt with the reasons why the author of the plays couldn’t be Shakespeare and only Shakespeare, and the second half dealt with why it must be Shakespeare and only Shakespeare. I was unconvinced by the second half of the chapter and I kept making up ways it could be more than one person and not Shakespeare. By the time I had finished reading, I had the plot of a farce. I was so intrigued with what I’d come up with that I immediately started doing research so that the plot would be historically feasible, and then I wrote the play.

How did the play get produced?

I entered it in some contests in the United States, and it won two significant contests: the 2009 Rocky Mountain Theater Association Playwriting Competition and was a selection of the 2009 Paragon Theater’s Trench New Play Development Program. In the summer of 2008, I had three short plays being produced at the Boulder Fringe Festival in Colorado and Andy McQuade (the artistic Director of Second Skin and the producer and director of the show here at the Rosemary Branch) was there doing a one-man show. I gave him the script because I knew “Shakespeare Inc.” was a play that would do well in London. Andy liked it, took it away and seven months later emailed me to say "Let's do the play." In the meantime, I gave the scripts to several theatres in Denver, and one of them decided to produce it. The production in Denver opens four days before the one here in London.

What plays, if any, had you written previously and how has your previous experience influenced the creation of "Shakespeare Inc."?

I've written six full-length plays (this was the third) and seven short plays. All of them, bar one full-length play that I finished last week, have been produced or are scheduled to be produced in the next couple of months. I've only been writing for three and a half years.

My first play, “Present Future,” was a farce, classic British farce, and "Shakespeare Inc." is two thirds farce. From “Present Future” I learned to have distinctive characters with distinctive voices, and I learned the intricacies of having a complex plot with everything fitting together. With "Postville" (a historical play) I learned to combine fiction with real events.

Who do you think really wrote the plays?

I don't know - I'm pretty convinced it wasn't Shakespeare and only Shakespeare, but I'm not a Shakespearean scholar and I don't pretend that what I put in the play, which makes good theatre, is what actually happened. But what I did write is historically possible.… I think.

How do you think audiences will receive the play?

I wrote it at three levels - the first level is for Shakespeare scholars. I'd like them to say "Isn't that clever? Of course it’s ridiculous, but it all fits and it explains a lot of things that never fit before." The second level is for people who have an average familiarity with Shakespeare. I want them to enjoy the puns and the funny references to Shakespeare plays. And at the third level, is it's a funny, sometimes moving tale of jealousy and intrigue.

The theme of the play is why people write, and as long as it's great art, why should people care who gets famous and who gets rich?