Frost/Nixon
By Peter Morgan
Directed by Ted Dykstra
Featuring Lou Cariou and David Storch
Runs October 13 – November 18 @ CanStage, Bluma Appel Theatre
By Matt McGeachy
There is a great scene from Art Linson’s 1980 film Where the Buffalo Roam, based on the life of Hunter S. Thompson, where Thompson, played by Bill Murray, unveils a life-sized cardboard cutout of Richard Nixon. He takes a swig from a bottle of Wild Turkey, and mutters in his trademark through-the-teeth way, “Nixon.” His dog begins immediately to attack the cutout’s crotch, and ultimately tears it to shreds.
I’ve always been of this mindset when it comes to the former president. In my house, Nixon and Kissinger were equivalent to four-letter words. The recent revival of interest in the career and life of the former president now has its Toronto theatrical embodiment: The Canadian Stage Company’s Frost/Nixon.
Featuring the dynamic duo of David Storch as English dandy David Frost and Canadian stage legend Lou Cariou as Richard Nixon, the show offers a behind the scenes look at the taping of the now-infamous interviews from 1977.
The show opens with a look at the two men in decline: Frost is obsessed with regaining his New York show, and Nixon is obsessed with regaining influence and power. Both are exiles – Frost in Sydney and Nixon in Orange County, California.
Len Cariou as Richard Nixon. Photo by David Cooper.
Cariou as Nixon embodies the character without ever impersonating. His Nixon is dignified and graceful, and his cadence perfectly reflects old recordings. He does not, however, ever alter his voice or his appearance for the role. In his trademark blue suit and conservative tie and in the stately manner of his movement, he is every inch presidential.
Storch’s Frost took a bit longer to warm up to, but ultimately it was a very satisfying character. Storch’s convincing portrayal of insecurity and foppishness and his transformation into a serious interviewer by the end of the show was powerful and very skillfully executed. Instead of altering Frost only in the seminal moments of that final, devastating interview, the character’s development was evident throughout the whole show.
Ultimately the show is a battle between two men, each one seeking their rightful place. The cast of supporting characters narrates events as they unfold, providing background and perspective. This break from the action was distracting at times, but it is to director Ted Dykstra’s credit that these distractions were minimal. Ari Cohen’s Jim Reston and Tom McBeath’s Jack Brennan provide the two extremes in Nixonland; Reston, the Nixon-hater par excellence, and Brennan’s dogmatic defense of the ex-president are both shown to be needless extremes.
The great moment of catharsis, where Nixon admits to his own wrongdoing in the Watergate scandal, shows such a nuanced and complicated view of Nixon that it even aroused sympathy. Two are broken, but only one rises from the ashes. Whatever else he was, this show reminds us that Nixon was ultimately the most tragic of creatures: a human being.
