‘Frost/Nixon’ restages 1977 encounter in London

The stage tackles the small screen in “Frost/Nixon,” Peter Morgan’s drama about one of the most sensational of all television encounters: the 1977 showdown between former President Richard M. Nixon and British talk-show host David Frost.

Morgan’s play, running at the Donmar Warehouse through Oct. 7, is an essay on the politics of power and the power of image, with Frank Langella as the clever, evasive, wounded and brooding Nixon, and Michael Sheen as Frost, the British TV personality who hopes the encounter will gain him another hosting stint on an American talk show.

The Nixon interviews -- the former president’s first after resigning in disgrace following the Watergate scandal -- were criticized by some journalists as a grubby example of checkbook journalism. Frost independently produced the programs and paid the former president $600,000 -- to the chagrin, Morgan suggests, of the American news show “60 Minutes,” which he says had offered far less.

From a 21st century perspective, the sessions seem unimaginably rigorous. It is hard to think of a current leader submitting to 28 hours of interviews recorded over 12 days. The eventual broadcast, in four 90-minute segments, was watched by millions.

Morgan is a film and television writer best known for “The Deal,” a TV movie that dissected the fraught relationship between Prime Minister Tony Blair and his finance minister and rival, Gordon Brown. Sheen starred in that project too, as Blair.

“Frost/Nixon,” Morgan’s first stage play, explores similar themes -- the relationship between politics and performance, the symbiosis and rivalry between two powerful men. Director Michael Grandage uses TV monitors above the stage to help capture the highly charged intimacy of the encounter.