Donald Freed
Circe & Bravo

Set in the President of the United States' lodge at the Camp David Mountain Retreat. The First Lady – code-name 'Circe' – has become a high security risk. A top Secret Service agent – code-name 'Bravo' – is assigned to guard her. First performed in the West End in 1986, starring Faye Dunaway and directed by Harold Pinter. (Cast 1m, 1f)

"Donald Freed is a writer of blazing imagination, courage and insight. His work is a unique and fearless marriage of politics and art. I take my hat off to him"
~ Harold Pinter

“This tense, claustrophobic torture-melodrama for two actors plays expertly on the nerves of the audience. It is enjoyable even while leaving you limp as a rag from the effort of stopping yourself from screaming.”
~ John Barber, Daily Telegraph

Donald Freed
The Quartered Man

Dealing with the many-sided moral questions concerning megapower involvement in other countries’ internal affairs, this is the story of the last day in the life of a famous spy, George C. O'Connor, and his madness and death in Central America. (Cast 6+m, 3+f)

"That this House congratulates the Shaw Theatre, its Director and staff on the excellent production of Donald Freed's play, The Quartered Man; expresses its particular admiration for Barry Foster’s tour de force in his role as the United States Embassy official caught up in the evil campaign being waged by the present United States of America Administration against Nicaragua; and looks forward to the day when President Reagan's state-sponsored terrorism is replaced by United States of America policy towards Central America more in sympathy with United States public opinion and the needs and wishes of Central American people."
~ Notices of Motions, House of Commons,
London, 17th February, 1988

“[The Quartered Man] is a passionate and legitimate attack on the supra-national arrogance of the CIA and on the de-stabilising tactics it is adopting in Central America.”
~ Michael Billington, The Guardian

“Freed makes the interesting point that there is now a new breed of American ‘Neanderthal war-whore’ who mutated from the rubble of Vietnam..."
~ Victoria Radin, New Statesman)

Donald Freed
Veterans Day

"It was war. And in war, everybody goes crazy or they die – right?"

Three war veterans meet at a Veterans Administration Hospital just before the remembrance ceremony begins: Private Leslie R. Holloway, born in 1900, shell-shocked at the Battle of the Marne in 1918; John MacCormick Butts, a veteran of World War II; and Colonel Walter Kercelik, the most highly decorated soldier of the Vietnam war. Three very different wars – and each man has a horror story locked inside him. Two of them are about to be honoured, but one of them has an altogether more sinister agenda...
Seen in the West End, at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, in 1989, starring Jack Lemmon and Michael Gambon. (Cast 3m)

“...a piece of distinguished, moving and morally eloquent writing.”
~ Edward Pearce, The Sunday Times