Politics, art mix in play about Bard of Avon

William Shakespeare created some of the most indelible characters in literature, but the playwright himself is mostly a mystery to historians. Yet the dearth of knowledge about the man has left room for intriguingly impertinent speculations by other writers through the years.

In the movies, we’ve seen the Bard of Avon as a besotted suitor in “Shakespeare in Love” and a hapless plagiarist in “Anonymous.” But no fictional interpretation has been as provocative as playwright Bill Cain’s in his award-winning 2009 political thriller “Equivocation.”

“For a play to begin with a confrontation between William Shakespeare and the prime minister of Great Britain and start with the line ‘Why me?’ — which I believe is an homage to the first two words of ‘Hamlet,’ which are ‘Who’s there?’ — right from the start we are embroiled in conflict of monumental proportion,” says David Barker, who is directing the play’s Arizona premiere for Southwest Shakespeare Company in Mesa.

In the opening scene, King James’ right-hand man, Robert Cecil, has summoned the already famous dramatist — here called “Shagspeare” — to commission a new play. It is to be the “true history” of the recent Gunpowder Plot, a reputed scheme by Catholic revolutionaries to blow up the House of Lords. (The 1605 events are commemorated every year on Guy Fawkes Day, Nov. 5.)

At first Shakespeare tries to demure, saying he doesn’t write about current affairs. But Cecil isn’t the kind of man who takes no for an answer.

“The play is about Shakespeare and Shakespeare’s conscience,” says Cain, a Jesuit priest who also has written for the television series “Nothing Sacred” and, most recently, “House of

See BARD, Page AE4