Frost/ Nixon at Bay Street Theater: The Power and the Media

Imagine longing for Richard Nixon. Anything that smacks of “presidential” sparks pangs of pity for us in our current regime. As portrayed by Harris Yulin, with dignity and a yen for Italian style, in the Frost/Nixon revival at Bay Street Theater, Nixon seems human: he even detests golf. When he says he betrayed the American people, you also believe him, that he was doing what he thought best, even while breaking the law. For him it was clearly complicated. David Frost (Daniel Gerroll), as the play reveals, put everything on the line to get good television out of a four-part interview with the former president, the only one to ever resign rather than face the indignities of impeachment, and what that would mean to the office of president: “Resignation is a noble act! America first!” Nixon was held accountable. And, he could think and speak in complete paragraphs! Oh for the simplicity of the bygone era!

As far as I could tell, nothing was changed in Peter Morgon’s 2006 script for this fine revival, directed by Sarna Lapine. And yet the world has made a seismic shift since the Watergate era. At Bay Street, on a set fitted with multiple screens, the live camerawork makes the media an active player in this historic drama, which of course it was then. But it also makes you reflect on the media’s role now, under constant assault, and as of this writing, alas, literal attack. Though the stage is filled with important figures, the agent Swifty Lazar (Stephen Lee Anderson), a narrator historian, James Reston, Jr. (Christian Conn), and others, front and center are the well-matched actors Yulin and Gerroll, commanding their corners, sparring from their arm chairs. At first Nixon seems to dodge what Frost asks of him: an apology for the American people would make great television, his risk worth it.

Have we learned anything? The uses of this medium for building or tarnishing images require a con man’s expertise.

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura