Frost/Nixon at Second Story Rep


I think I heard it right.  Frost/Nixon, now on stage at Second Story Rep, says Richard Nixon engineered his own downfall in his interviews with David Frost.  That’s the way it came across to me, anyway.  And that would make Nixon a tragic figure, which I am sure he would love.

Patrick Kevin plays Nixon as uncomfortable and slightly clownish, which is certainly the received idea of Nixon.  He seems to buy in to his lone assistant Jack Brennan’s (Jalyn Green) idea of the interviews with Frost as a way to win.

Doug Fahl plays David Frost as plodding and determined, like fate bearing down on Tricky Dick.  His assistants seem more interested in his rehabilitation than he is himself and they think he’s screwing it up.

Just before the fourth and final interview session with Nixon, Frost figures out that Nixon wants to take himself down.  Sure enough, Nixon hangs himself in that interview with the by now famous confession, “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”

The optics are terrible.  Brennan is devastated.  But the ex-president gets away without really admitting wrongdoing.  He goes out on his own terms, presumably to put this all behind him.  In the final scene, he’s jovial.

Frost’s team is ecstatic.  In their minds, they have forced the historic moment.

The Frost/Nixon interviews were a win/win, is what I heard.

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