Riveting 'Frost/Nixon': When Needy Met Seedy

The major laurels, of course, go to Sheen and Langella, who find a poignant symbiosis in two deeply needy men, one in search of redemption in the world of talking heads, the other from history.

What makes "Frost/Nixon" such ripe entertainment is how unlikely the collaboration seems. The cheerily oblivious limey lightweight and the brooding, mortally wounded political animal: Austin Powers vs. Macbeth. The dramatist gives us witty indicators of their foibles and idiosyncrasies. Sheen's Frost is a slightly seedy hound dog, wearing ill-fitting knit shirts and picking up ladies on transatlantic flights. (A woman informs him that she's read somewhere that his fame for being famous has made him emblematic of the age, along with the likes of Vidal Sassoon.) Nixon is painted as peculiar, cunning, caustic, funny. No one, not even his aides, seems to get it when he's joking, and this helps to cast him in a more sympathetic light: He's misunderstood, even in jest. When a makeup woman arrives to daub on the pancake, this man of hyper-self-consciousness mentions, with sharp understatement, his prior problems with perspiration on TV.

Langella is not merely entertaining here; he's enveloping.

His Nixon is grandiose at times and petty at others, a man of both titanic hurts and mean little fixations. (Keen on matters of enrichment, this version of Nixon advises Frost to marry his girlfriend because she lives in Monaco and therefore represents a tax advantage.) Actors as varied as Dan Aykroyd and Anthony Hopkins have given us their versions of Nixon, but no one has ever succeeded to quite the degree that Langella does in granting him a tragic dimension. Late in the proceedings, as the interview tapings are coming to an end and Frost has been frustrated in his efforts to force some admission of guilt, Morgan invents a late-night phone call from an inebriated Nixon to a surprised Frost.

Nixon is looking not to taunt or whine but to commune, to confirm the common ground this encounter signifies for both of them, to validate a kinship forged in brutal disappointment and disparagement.

"We were headed, both of us, for the dirt," Langella declares.

"The place the snobs always told us we'd end up. . . . Well, to hell with that. We're not going to let that happen, either of us. We're going to show those bums, and make them choke on our continued success."

The speech is a stunning illumination of resolve, resentment, delusion. And it brings the production to a stinging, ringing crescendo. In fact, the only truly disconsolate facet of "Frost/Nixon" comes as you leave the theater, realizing that you won't have Sheen or Langella to kick around anymore.

Frost/Nixon, by Peter Morgan. Directed by Michael Grandage. Sets and costumes, Christopher Oram; lighting, Neil Austin; music and sound, Adam Cork; video designer, Jon Driscoll; hair and wigs, Richard Mawbey. With Remy Auberjonois, Sonya Walger, Armand Schultz, Triney Sandoval. At Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, 242 W. 45th St. Call 212-239-6200 or visit http://www.telecharge.com.