Patience needn’t

be a virtue

Award-winning American playwright Donald

Freed tells Andy Murray why we must

question our political leaders’ motives before

they’re consigned to the history books

Bigiss_718_28 (arts):Bigiss_716_28 (arts) 17/4/08 17:41 Page 1

"I had a small grant to look for a place to

teach so I approached the University of Leeds,"

Freed says.

"I was appointed as an artist in residence at

the workshop theatre there, and that’s when I

met Damian Cruden, who’s the artistic director

at York Theatre Royal. He was interested in

working together. He’s got tremendous talent

and generosity and vision, and it’s a great

theatre. You could go around the world and not

have a better experience than this has been.

And so I made these very deep and dynamic

relationships at York Theatre Royal, and the

culmination of it is this."

What Freed’s referring to is his latest play,

Patient No 1, which makes its world premiere at

the Theatre Royal next month. In the piece, set

in the very near future, a certain George W Bush

is admitted to an isolated psychiatric clinic and

begins to unravel under a course of intensive

therapy. It’s been widely described as a satire,

but as the author, Freed fights shy of

pigeonholing the play.

"These labels – satire, parody, lampoon,

cartoon, cabaret, political theatre – they’re all

critical labels. I suppose you would call this a

tragi-farce. But then again, what is a tragifarce?

The situation we’re in is tragic and

farcical: you don’t know whether to laugh or

cry."

Surely it’s a challenge for any sane artist to

put himself in the mind of Bush. "At first blush

it would seem that these are mortal enemies

politically," agrees Freed. "But think of the

great examples: think of Macbeth, Iago, the

Greek tragedies. It’s all beyond good and evil. If

you’re a critic then you can simply pick and

choose the vices and virtues and add them up

to get any sum you like. But if you’re a serious

creative writer, what choice have you but to see

the point of view of the character?"

Freed’s play, then, uses theatre to examine

the ultimate legacy of our present-day leaders.

"Bush and Blair never tire of saying that history

will judge them, but history is not supposed to

be the judge in a democracy. If you conduct

yourself so that history is going to judge you

rather than your contemporaries, it means that

no one is left to judge you except the artist,

except the playwright, and except the theatre.

So this play is meant to demystify the cartoon

version of George Bush and to show him in all

his terror and pity."

With the Bush era coming to an end and the

American elections looming, does Freed believe

they offer much hope for real political change?

"You could draw a pessimistic conclusion,"

he concurs. "On the other hand, even the

smallest difference can have enormous impact

around the world when you’re a superpower. It’s

a corner of the canvas, it’s not the centre ring,

but it is of tremendous importance

internationally. And yet if you put all your eggs

in the basket of elections you have a great

problem, because the repetition of magical

words like ‘democracy’ can lull you into some

sort of hypnotic state. Both the US and the UK

are now what you may term ‘war on terror’

democracies. There are nations dealing with

tortures and secrecy at a level that means that

they could be as dangerous or as transient as

the so-called democracy Greece was, or the

Republic of Rome."

During the 1970s Freed worked for the

Citizens Research and Investigation Committee,

and as a journalist he wrote extensively on such

highly charged subjects as Nixon, Watergate,

the Black Panthers and the assassination of

Bobby Kennedy. Now, at the age of 75, his twoyear

British sojourn is about to draw to a close,

and he’s set to return to the United States to

teach creative writing at the University of

Southern California. He’s uniquely placed to

comment on the UK’s changing political

landscape.

"As a visitor over several decades, I do see a

difference, and I’m quite struck by it," he says.

"The Labour Party has been so warped, it seems

to me, by power and by vainglorious visions of

neo-colonial messianism. Everybody can sense

that something’s wrong. One moment it’s

banking, another moment it’s something else:

there are all these signs."

However, Freed does express his strong

approval for this very publication. "I’m a great

follower of The Big Issue," he says. "I first

became aware of it in talking about it with

Harold Pinter. It’s an honour!"

Patient No 1, York Theatre Royal, 1-17 May