A Review

Worthy Competitors

By R. J. Donovan

“Frost / Nixon,” now at The Colonial, gives an inside look at what led up to the famous 1977 television interviews between British talk show host David Frost and former President Richard M. Nixon.

Written by Peter Morgan (“The Queen” and “Last King of Scotland”) and direced by Michael Grandage, “Frost / Nixon” is not a documentary, but rather a drama based on fact.

The story is narrated by Jim Reston (played by Brian Sgambati), the author of numerous books and feature articles, who made no bones about his contempt for Nixon. When Frost was assembling his production team for the interviews, he hired Reston for his insight on the Watergate disaster -- a decision which proved pivotal for Frost.

So how do you bring to the stage two very well known individuals. What mannerisms to employ and how far to take it is a hard one to call, because if the performance is too heavy-handed, it becomes mockery. And if there’s not enough there, it lacks an edge.

Stacy Keach plays Nixon in the national tour. Unlike Frank Langella, who stars in the current film version and received a Tony Award for his critically acclaimed stage performance, Keach doesn’t go for a re-creation of the former President so much as a suggestion. There’s no hunched shoulders here. Likewise, Alan Cox, doesn’t attempt an impersonation of David Frost as much as an interpretation.

All of which makes the first half of the play a challenge to grasp. You’re almost expecting the two actors to come out brandishing the physical and vocal similarities of their real life counterparts. When they don't, the audience has to use its imagination to fill in some of the blanks on its own as the story unfolds. And while the first half of the night sets the premise and identifies the players, it's the final section that picks up the pace.

In Morgan’s script, David Frost doesn’t always come across as the larger than life figure many remember from that era. Although Frost may have tried to position himself as a highly intelligent, hard hitting investigator, the jet-setting celebrity playboy was described by his own staff as merely a “performer.”

What’s interesting to learn is that when he approached Nixon about the interview sessions in the first place (three years after the disgraced president left office), Frost had no real game plan, he had no financing for the project, and he had no outlet for the actual broadcasts. His own ego pushed him forward and his personal checkbook paid most of the bills.

In turn, the Nixon people set their sites on Frost thinking they would be guaranteed a puff piece interview. Why stare down the shotgun barrel of someone like Mike Wallace on “60 Minutes” when you can field a few softball questions from a lightweight British chat show host who was famous for being famous -- and pick up a half million dollars while doing it. Furthermore, they were so sure of their power over Frost, they set forth rigid demands on how the interview sessions would and would not be conducted.

There was a lot at stake for both men, and each felt he could better the other. Ultimately, each was partially right and partially wrong.

During the first of the interview sessions depicted on stage, Frost is completely unable to corral the former President, who rambles and pontificates and presents himself in a highly favorable life. Frost misjudged the situation, the process and his own advisors.

However, that last category proved to be his ace in the hole when Reston discovered transcripts and materials that, while readily available, were seemingly overlooked by other journalists. All of which allowed Frost to grab hold of the situation, break Nixon apart and get the former President to admit -- before the largest audience for a news interview in history -- that he had let the American people down.

The deceit of the play is that a pivotal phone conversation late in the proceedings never actually took place. It adds enormous critical insight into the characters of the two men, however it pushes the envelope on artistic license.

Television is an ever-present character in the play. The evening cleverly begins with the sound of broadcast static. And as the play is set in the seventies, the technology has to match. So there’s a bank of 36 television screens above the playing area, sometimes showing grainy historical footage, and other times showing the less than high-def performance taking place live in front of us. Television was never Richard Nixon’s friend, from the Kennedy debates onward. “Frost/Nixon” certainly underscores how he suffered the reductive power of the close-up.

Onstage, there’s not a set as much as a bare playing area that very simply sets the location of each scene with a procession of chairs (office, hotel room, airplane), ultimately leading up to the two seats Nixon and Frost occupy for the interviews.

While the interviews forced Nixon to face his own defeat, they simultaneously bolstered Frost’s currency in the world. Where he had been ridiculed and soundly dismissed by colleagues for even attempting the project in the first place, he was vindicated in the end.

Which is why, 30 years later, we’re still interested in how two unlikely combatants squared off before the world.

"Frost / Nixon" is at The Colonial Theatre through February 8. For information, call 1-800-982-2787.

Production photo: Carol Rosegg

-- OnStage Boston