September 2008

Dear Subscriber:

WELCOME TO OUR 42ND SEASON of exciting, enticing and entertaining theatre. We are so pleased that you are joining us. The unmistakable wonder of a unique experience held in common is one of the greatest joys of live theatre, and we are thrilled to be sharing it with you on all three of our stages.

OUR OPENING PRODUCTION on the Mainstage draws a timely tight focus on our political system, specifically the office of the President, with the first production outside of Broadway of Peter Morgan’s critically acclaimed Frost/Nixon. An Olivier, Tony Award and Drama Desk nominee for Best Play, this historically informed work brings to the stage what has been described as Richard M. Nixon’s “trial by television,” the only trial for which he would ever sit. Morgan’s witty and supercharged script captures the riveting essence of jet-setting British television host David Frost’s groundbreaking series of 1977 interviews with Richard Nixon in which the former President admitted, “[I] let down my friends . . . let down the country . . . let down the American people.” This skillfully extracted apology re-launched Frost’s career, securing him lengthy and lucrative contracts on three continents, and provided the only conviction that a pardoned Nixon’s critics could savor without a true public trial. Following the record-setting broadcast, Frost’s public and professional ratings soared while Nixon retreated into “the wilderness” of San Clemente. Frost earned a long-coveted place at the legitimate news lunch table and Nixon, stripped of his onetime opportunity at redemption and political resurrection, was left feeling that he had “nothing more to contribute.”

IT IS IMPORTANT TO STATE, however, that as Peter Morgan has written this play, it is not unkind to Nixon. In fact, it paints a more empathetic picture of him than is usually seen onstage or in film. Part of the joy of this play is that it is not just a two character play. There is a big cast in the production, and the show is not just two people sitting in chairs talking to each other. It moves quickly as there is a lot at stake for both Frost and Nixon. They both need each other at this time in their lives for the same reason—if the interviews turn out well, both will regain important status. Frost did.

EVEN SO, THE RAMIFICATIONS of this carefully orchestrated tete-a-tete reached far beyond the lives of the two featured players. More than just a simple news program, this series changed the face of everything from political procedure and campaign finance to our collective perspective on the presidency and expectations of public interviews and investigative journalism. Courtesy of Watergate, its exposure and the obligatory journalistic autopsy, our prevailing presumption— spoken or not—is that the overwhelming majority of politicians are corrupt, and we expect aggressive, sometimes even combative, interviewers to routinely air the inevitable dirty laundry that must be hanging in so many Washington closets. This expectation speaks volumes about the power of the moment and the power of perspective—the driving forces behind these historic interviews and in turn, Morgan’s play. A review of the interview tapes reveals Frost, not as a relentless bloodhound, but more often as a collegial sounding board allowing Nixon to relive his finer moments in the Oval Office. For much of the series, he listens casually while Nixon recounts his triumphs, virtually unchecked. However, in a single moment, with a single line of questioning, Frost reverses the flow of power and neutralizes his opponent.

THIS TURNABOUT IS DUE in no small part to the efforts of Jim Reston, the simultaneously real-life and fictionalized chief “crack investigator” for Frost’s team, responsible for uncovering portions of the notorious White House tapes that appear to demonstrate both Nixon’s knowledge and endorsement of the coverup three days earlier than the so-called “smoking gun” conversation with H. R. Haldeman in which Nixon attempts to use the CIA to stop the FBI investigation. Reston’s memoir on his experience, The Conviction of Richard Nixon: The Untold Story of the Frost/Nixon Interviews, lay untouched for years after the event until Morgan approached him for background information for the play. The previously unpublished work became the primary source for Morgan’s dramatization of events, with Reston as the narrator for the piece and a shadowy third contender in what Morgan lays out as a bout between unequally matched but similarly driven opponents. Morgan, through Reston’s eyes, reveals Frost and Nixon as temperamentally and socially polar opposites compelled by the same survivalist instinct. They are ambitious men who, each having tasted greatness in his own arena, are loathe to give it up. As a result, Frost and Nixon approach the interviews as a proving ground, a chance to regain the lost limelight. Reston, on the other hand, is on a mission propelled by passion and a personal quest for justice. What results in the play is one man, with the highest political aspirations, being felled by another, with no political convictions, empowered by yet a third who is driven by the greatest moral imperative.

THE SCRIPT, OF COURSE, takes certain dramatic freedoms with the facts, but they are deliberate alterations to serve the story, not careless inaccuracies. Morgan addresses the issue in his Author’s Note which precedes the play:

Whilst I’m satisfied, having met most of the participants and interviewed them at length, that what follows is an accurate representation of what actually happened, in the end, as an author, I feel most comfortable thinking of this as a fiction—a creation. Finally, it is a play, not a historical document and I have on occasion, perhaps inevitably, been unable to resist using my imagination.

For example, in Morgan’s text, Reston’s hail-Mary discovery falls at the end of the interview sessions, when in reality, it came nearly eight months prior to the beginning of taping. This heightens the tension among the Frost camp members and amplifies the moment when Frost springs the unexpected information on Nixon. This structure gives the intellectual victory to Reston but the public prestige to Frost. In his memoir though, Reston is clear about Frost’s abilities:

He is a very substantial person . . . and he certainly had the acuity to know that he had to be prepared for this historic thing he had to do. This is about a moment in broadcast history as well. David used irony and cleverness in the Watergate show in a very effective way . . . In that moment where the intense withering interrogation had got Nixon to the point of cracking, he knew to back off instinctively. He switches so wonderfully to Father Confessor. He backed off to see what would come out of the wreckage.

THIS MOMENT OF CONFRONTATION/confession is also somewhat altered. In the stage version, Nixon’s Chief of Staff, Jack Brennan, walks onto the set, interrupting the taping just as Nixon is on the verge of contrition. But according to Robert Zelnick, who served on Frost’s team as executive editor of the interviews:

The truth is that Brennan never burst onto the set to stop the interrogation. Instead, he began waving an improvised little placard in Frost’s line of vision reading LET HIM TALK. Mistaking the words as LET US TALK Frost called a short halt to the proceedings. The delay, occasioned by Brennan’s effort to get Frost to back off, allowing Nixon time to complete his apologia, wound up working because it gave the Nixon staff time to implore Nixon to go further than he had and for Brennan to urge Frost to be empathetic. The result was one of the most gripping moments in the history of television news, as Nixon finally conceded that he had participated in the coverup and had offered statements from the White House that were, at times, not true . . . [T]he Frost/Nixon interviews proved cathartic, providing Richard Nixon with the opportunity to acknowledge his role in the Watergate coverup and confess that he had betrayed the trust of the nation. It also gave Americans the opportunity to see him pained, contrite and unthreatening.

ONE OF THE MOST STRIKING things about the convergence of the play and the historical background is that even within the “real-life” accounts from people who sat in the same room together and heard or had the same conversations, there is considerable variation in interpretation of events and their long-term significance. Morgan captures this idea beautifully in one of Reston’s final monologues of the play in which he talks about the “reductive power of the close-up.” Essentially, perspective is everything. For Nixon, a lifetime of accomplishments on a national and international scale is reduced to a single frame of defeat—for Frost, hours of relatively unremarkable taping are forgotten in the relish of a single moment of concession. What is the truth of the matter? It all depends on who is behind the camera.

THIS IS WHAT SETS THE PLAY APART, I think—it is not only about the individuals Frost and Nixon; it is also about the universal power of television. That’s why Frost was, in fact, the perfect person to interview Nixon. He knew television, he knew how the camera worked, he knew how to guide an interview to get the results he wanted. As people of a certain age may recall, many feel that Nixon lost the 1960 election to John Kennedy because of how Nixon looked on the televised debates. Whether this was true or not, Nixon was always wary of the camera after that experience. As we see in our current election cycle, image is all. The amount of face time a candidate gets is important, as are the clothes he or she wears and the backdrop for the shot. Everything is stage managed and designed. These are things that Frost knew innately and Nixon didn’t. Thus, Frost’s eventual command of the interviews came from his brilliance on TV. This element also makes this a technically complicated play for us because as Frost interviews Nixon onstage, cameras are shooting these scenes and “broadcasting” them live on 12 television monitors placed above the stage, making the piece that much more compelling and fascinating.

WHILE THE PLAY BASICALLY IS SET during the 1977 interviews, there are some lines that sound like they might have been uttered in a news broadcast this year. One of the more interesting references comes when Reston talks about “The Houston Plan.” This doesn’t refer to the city, but to a Mr. Houston who worked in the Nixon administration and developed a plan for domestic spying, wiretapping and other methods for the government to find out things about American citizens. The plan was only in effect for two weeks because J. Edgar Hoover shut it down. However, the remnants of that plan are part of the current Patriot Act and FISA laws. Again, the impact of what was done during the Nixon Administration is still with us in contemporary life.

IT IS MY PLEASURE TO DIRECT an extraordinary cast led by Keith Jochim as the embattled President and Jeff Talbott as his worthy adversary, Frost. Jim Wisniewski joins them as Jim Reston, with David Christopher Wells as Zelnick, Jeremy Holm as Brennan and Keith Merrill as Frost’s friend and producer, John Birt. David Anzuelo, Matt Landers and Jenny Mercein round out the cast along with local actors Michael Brightman, Steve Callahan and Kelley Ryan. Michael Schweikardt’s transitional set takes us around the world and back while Elizabeth Covey’s dead-on costume design helps us pinpoint the period and the station of life to which these two men were accustomed. The full effect of the television experience is realized through Mary Jo Dondlinger’s lighting design, Rusty Wandall’s sound plot and Eric Woolsey’s skillful video design, complemented by Bobby Miller’s work as video consultant. This is a powerhouse play made even more dynamic by an outstanding cast and creative team, and I can’t wait to bring their work to you.

OUR OFF-RAMP SEASON gets underway September 17 with Martin McDonagh’s deeply dark, deeply funny The Lieutenant of Inishmore. Stuart Carden directs this Olivier Award winner for Best Comedy that dares to drag Irish terrorism into the madcap world of farce, with the surprising result being one of the most amazingly funny plays I have ever seen. Poking graphic Tarantino-esque fun at a topic generally considered taboo, this wild ride on the island of Inishmore focuses on the mysterious and untimely death of poor Wee Thomas, the unassuming, much beloved black cat of Mad Padraic, an angry young Irishman denied entry into the IRA because he was, well, too mad. Padraic reckons Thomas to be his “only friend in the world” and will stop at nothing to avenge the feline’s murder. This proves particularly unpleasant for any and all suspects, as rejection by the IRA has only sharpened and broadened Padraic’s skills as a “persuasive interrogator.” As a result, the play does contain very adult language and situations, loud gunfire and extremely graphic scenes of violence and torture that some may find disturbing. We assure you, though, that no cats were harmed in the production of this play. The only thing more surprising than Padraic’s tactics is the play’s shocking conclusion, so once you’ve seen it, mum’s the word. If you blab, we’ll tell Mad Padraic. The Lieutenant of Inishmore runs through October 12 at the Grandel Theatre.

THE SEASON BEGINS with two very different looks at the extremes to which political vigor and a quest for power can take us, both noting that perception is, at least for a time, as powerful as reality. We look forward to unpacking a season full of unmissable moments and are so glad that you have chosen to be a part of them all.

See you at the theatre,

Steven Woolf
Artistic Director


BRIEF NEW YORK REPORT: If you are going to New York soon, you may want to catch [title of show], a very clever piece that features the work of Hunter Bell and Larry Pressgrove, who have been in many shows at The Rep. The book is by Mr. Bell, a Webster Conservatory graduate who also stars as himself in this upstart musical, and Mr. Pressgrove provides musical direction. South Pacific is sublime and Gypsy is nothing short of amazing. And Boeing Boeing is wildly funny. This fall, New York welcomes Billy Elliot and Equus, both shows enjoyed by our London tour group and certainly worth seeing.

P.S. Over the course of the fall, several of the St. Louis theatres are participating in the 2008 St. Louis Political Theatre Festival, producing plays with a political theme; you may want to check them out.

On another programming note, please remember that Tuesday curtain times for the Mainstage and the Studio are now 7:00 p.m., allowing you to see a show and still be home early. All Off-Ramp productions remain at 8:00 p.m., however. And don’t forget the annual Rep gala—Shaken, Not Stirred: A 007 Affair—at the new Four Seasons Hotel on the landing on Friday, November 14. Please call (314) 968-7340 x 229 to receive an invitation; it’s going to be lots of fun.

If you are an Anheuser-Busch shareholder you may want to consider donating some portion of your stock to The Rep before the sale of the company is complete. Your gift will not only help us to continue bringing you outstanding live theatre, but can also help you avoid significant capital gains taxes. To find our more, please call our Development office at (314) 968-7340 x 228 or your financial advisor. And as always, thank you for your support.

Finally, we encourage you to celebrate the professional accomplishments of St. Louis native, Washington University alumnus and Rep favorite, John Ezell, as the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ Des Lee Gallery presents “Bold Strokes and Finesse: The Stage Designs of John Ezell.” The exhibition will include drawings, models, painter elevations and other material surveying the breadth and scope of Ezell’s work. The exhibit opens September 11 and runs through November 22.