when david faced a wounded goliath
i caught the first canadian production of the Peter Morgan play Frost/Nixon saturday evening. fast and fluid (in almost Aaron Sorkin-like fashion), it recounts the 1977 TV face-off between its title characters, the British talk show host (as in David) and the former American president (as in Richard M.). staged with the momentum of a ticking-bomb thriller and the zing of a boulevard comedy, the central theme of the play is the tension between camera and subject as Frost/Nixon makes it clear that he who controls the camera, wins.
Structured as a prize fight between two starkly ambitious men in professional crisis while playing fast and loose with the actual facts and chronology, the production is bolstered by the performances of its two leads: David Storch and Len Cariou. i discovered later that Cariou is the Canadian actor who won a Tony Award for originating the iconic character of Sweeney Todd on Broadway. here, he imbues the disgraced former president with the essential public traits: the buttered-gravel voice, the scowling smile, the joviality that seemed to contain an implicit threat while never resorting to mere imitation. the audience can’t help but sympathize with both of the “larger than life” characters plagued with self-doubt and a need for approval.
speaking of the vancouver theatre scene, the Arts Club is currently presenting a staging of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Doubt, which, like Frost/Nixon, is getting the big screen treatment. here’s the trailer featuring critical darlings Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman. and just in case you haven’t been paying attention, yes, this is the very definition of oscar bait.
