Playwright: Peter Morgan. At: TimeLine Theatre Company, 615 W. Wellington. Tickets: 773-281-8463; www.timelinetheatre.com; $28-$38. Runs through: Oct. 10
Even in disgrace in 1977, former President Richard Nixon was a powerful man with gatekeepers and advisers. Even at low ebb, TV celebrity David Frost hardly was out of work or possibilities. That Nixon, then 64, would agree to no-holds-barred TV interviews with Frost, then 39, was as unlikely as if Dick Cheney sat down with Simon Cowell. It can be argued that both men were masters of manipulation with hidden agendasNixon's to revive his public career ( although not his political career ) and Frost's to establish himself as a heavyweight journalist. That's the interpretation playwright Peter Morgan follows in his stage and film success, Frost/Nixon, and it makes for excellent popular drama at TimeLine.
Morgan's play is no more a documentary than the Nixon-Frost interviews were spontaneous. The four one-hour interviews that aired were edited down from 28 hours of talk taped over four weeks under careful contractual guidelines. Similarly, Morgan's play selectively chooses, arranges and condenses personalities, facts and timelines and makes up much of what Frost and Nixon ( especially ) didn't actually say when the cameras weren't rolling. We have, for example, a Nixon constantly making small jokes that no one gets. It almost makes the grand self-justifier likeable. Frost, on the other hand, comes across as blandly dogged with no emotional depth. Set up as a war only one of them can win, Nixon appears to throw the battle intentionally while Frost seems not to relish his victory ( in fact, both reaped substantial monetary rewards from the partnership ) .
Terry Hamilton as Nixon does a remarkable job, given the fact that he doesn't really look like Nixon. He commands his tools well to create Nixonvoice, facial expression, posture and gestureand it's an effective impersonation. But Nixon's voice and look and manner are too deeply scorched into the minds of those who lived through his presidency for Hamilton ever to escape the fact that he's doing an impression. Andrew Carter fares better as David Frost, largely because our mind/ear memories of Frost are far more limited ( at least in the United States ) and because Frost was a less colorful figure. The supporting cast of eight makes good work of the fast-moving play, skillfully staged by master director Louis Contey, but the play belongs to Nixon and Frost. Keith Pitts' large, rounded set suggests Oval Office, a talk show set and theatricality all at once, a neat trick.
Will audiences under 40 care about this play? Who is tragically self-destructive Richard Nixon to them? Who is unheroic David Frost? Will they know ( or care ) that Watergate tested the limits of the Constitution? Will they understand the payback for Nixon's fall that his political heirs still are inflicting upon us?