Interviews

Katie Bonna on writing and performing The Celebrated Mrs Inchbald

What made you choose this subject?
Colin Blumenau, the artistic director of the Bury St Emunds Theatre Royal, commissioned me to write a piece about Mrs Inchbald as they wanted to introduce her to their audience and adopt her as a patron to the building. She was born locally (in the village of Stanningfield ), was a celebrated figure in Georgian theatre (in which this theatre specialises) and was a tremendously talented writer to boot.

Elizabeth Inchbald’s late 18th century world is in many ways removed from the early 21st century. Do you see parallels?
I am continually fascinated by the frequency in which I come across a scene in a Georgian play which could easily be transposed to a modern day setting. Human dilemmas, neuroses and behaviour haven’t really altered all.
Inchbald herself was a famous woman and a successful writer and this placed her under a certain amount of pressure to maintain her public face and keep her real self private. She tempered and restricted herself constantly in order to be accepted and respected as an independent, business woman, quite a feat in the late 1700s. It has been interesting for me to explore this and how our attitude to “celebrity” and the fame culture has evolved.

Have you written for this theatre company before?
No, this is my first piece for them, but we are currently in discussions to develop two new plays over the next year, one in a similar vein to The Celebrated Mrs Inchbald and one entirely original piece exploring the parallels between Georgian and modern-day theatre and life.

How closely have you worked with the director and the designer?
This piece was researched, written and produced in just six weeks (during September last year), so rehearsals were sparse in the first instance.
This will be the third re-staging since then (including one performance at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane ) and I have been reworking the piece with Abigail Anderson (the associate director).
Abi is an incredible director for pushing you to explore the detail and thought processes of your text, making it a completely present piece of theatre. Having written the play, it might seem an unnecessary exercise to work through these ideas but, actually, as an actor, I had not examined the text anywhere near as thoroughly as I would have done had it been written by somebody else. I found myself undermining my own writing and Abi has shaken me out of that.

Have you always wanted to write plays? Or is this a one-off?
At the end of my drama school training, I wrote a play for my final project and enjoyed the creative freedom it allowed me. Since then I have been lucky to have directors interested in my writing and was encouraged to complete that play and produce it by the director Jessica Swale, who still supports my new writing and recently work-shopped my latest play Liquorice and Smoke-Rings at Out Of Joint (of which she is associate director). I’ve always loved writing and was convinced I was going to write books as a child. Nowadays, the idea of writing a novel terrifies me but I love playwriting.

What other theatre work do you do?
I work as an actor predominantly. Two years ago I set up Red Handed Theatre with Jessica Swale, which she now runs as artistic director, and I still work with her on projects. We are currently co-directing a new devised show, with an amazing group of actors, based on Dicken’s A Child’s History of England.

And outside the theatre?
When I have no paid theatre work, I teach. I have my LAMDA teaching diploma, which I gained before training as an actor, and it’s been pretty useful. I also write workshops for West End shows and teaching companies. It’s very useful to have quite a well paid freelance job to fall back on.

What advice would you give anyone else who wants to write plays?
Write. Someone gave me that piece of advice early on and I thought it odd and a bit silly at the time but it has served me well so far. Just write. I think you can fall into a trap of thinking for too long about what you could write or how you could write it and often you are better off just sitting down and getting stuck in.
I’m also a shameless thief and carry a notebook with me at all times. Observation is probably key to good dialogue writing but I’m not very conscious about it; I just note snatches of dialogue, a suggestion of something, three words that strike me as epitomizing a character – bits and pieces.
The hugest leap I have made, though, is to understand that I need to trust my own artistic vision and see it through. Feedback is useful, and often essential, but it is worth being selective about who you ask for it from and then openly, honestly filtering the input given to you. Always write the play you want to write; lots of people have given me that piece of advice but I am only just beginning to fully grasp it.