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THE PRESS: THEATRE
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Preview: Patient No 1, The Studio, York Theatre Royal, May 1 to 17
By Charles Hutchinson Comment
The cast of Patient No 1
Set two years into the future, political playwright Donald Freed's
Patient No 1 places the now former American President George W. Bush in an
elite, isolated South Florida psychiatric clinic.
As a famous psychologist practises his art on his VIP patient, Freed
exposes "the madness and death of George W. Bush and his
country".
CHARLES HUTCHINSON books an appointment with the shrink ahead of the
world premiere at York Theatre Royal.
How long have you known Donald Freed, Jon?
"I 'knew' him for 20 years before I actually met him. He wrote a
one character play about Richard Nixon, called Secret Honor, that I did.
It's Nixon in his office ten years after he's been forced out of the
presidency, defending his career to the judge and jury of the American
people? on tape, of course!
"I did it in rep with two other plays, 40 performances, and then I
bought the set having done it in Cleveland and toured it round, so every
time I would do the play again, I'd send Donald his nickel - but he still
hasn't seen me in it."
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When did you first work together?
"We got together three or four years ago for Donald's new
adaptation of Tolstoy's The Death Of Ivan Ilych - I was playing Ivan Ilych
- and we spent three of four months together on the show that spring, and
so when he asked me to do a staged reading of Patient No 1 I came over to
Leeds to do it.
"Doing this play has been probably the single largest investment
I've ever made in theatre."
In what way?
"I came over for 12 days to Leeds with my wife for an unbudgeted
production, no set, no costumes, just whatever you could throw together.
"We rehearsed it for six, seven days with Donald directing, and
the person who was due to read the role of Bush copped out late in the
day, so Donald stepped in - and it was this reading that Damian Cruden
York Theatre Royal's artistic director saw and decided that it might make
a vehicle for York."
Now that rehearsals are well advanced for the Theatre Royal world
premiere, describe the chemistry between your character, the psychiatrist,
and George W Bush, played by Robert Pickavance?
"Contrasts are good on stage. George W Bush is a Neo-Con
warmonger, and the psychiatrist is a flaming liberal. . . not a bleeding
heart liberal, mind, but a flaming one.
"But political issues are not the primary concern in the play.
There's a kinship between Patient No 1 and the Nixon play in that a very
liberal playwright has taken a conservative president whose actions gained
notoriety and then put his primary interest in the personality of each
man, not the political stance."
· Patient No 1, The Studio, York Theatre Royal, Thursday to May
17. Box office: 01904 623568
11:18am Friday 25th April 2008
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