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Good Theater is about to open 'Frost/Nixon,' and for actor Tony Reilly, playing the former president is about being the man, not looking like him.

By BOB KEYES, Staff Writer October 25, 2009

PORTLAND — Tony Reilly is undaunted by the prospects of portraying Richard Nixon on stage.

"It's no different than if you were doing Hamlet," said Reilly, who stars as the late U.S. president in the Good Theater production of the play "Frost/Nixon," opening Thursday at the St. Lawrence Arts & Community Center in Portland.

"You can't get caught up in the idea that you have to do a Richard Nixon imitation. I'm just playing the character."

But what a character.

The difference between playing Hamlet and playing Nixon is monumental. The only Hamlet we know is through the pages of Shakespeare and stage interpretations. But Nixon, we all knew. We watched him conquer the world and then self-destruct before our eyes, on TV in real time in an age before the 24/7 news cycle.

Nixon, who resigned the office of president in 1974 following the Watergate scandal, was a symbol of power and disgrace. He was a world leader during a time of global chaos. He was an icon – instantly recognized the world over by image and by voice.

Ultimately, Nixon is a tragic, pathetic and sympathetic figure, and it is that man that Reilly is aiming for in his portrayal. He wants to conjure a man beset by struggles.

"Nixon was a man who was not comfortable in his own skin," said Reilly, who lives in South Portland. "He was not comfortable at all. I have to find that man, for whom everything is painful."

"Frost/Nixon" is the work of British screenwriter Peter Morgan. It opened in London in 2006, and moved to Broadway in spring 2007. Ron Howard directed a movie version last year; Frank Langella played Nixon on stage and in the film.

The Good Theater production represents the Maine premiere of the play.

It focuses on a series of interviews that Nixon granted TV reporter David Frost in 1977. Three years removed from office, Nixon viewed the TV interviews as an opportunity to rebuild and reshape his image despite the considerable risk they posed.

Frost had suffered a series of professional setbacks to his status as celebrity reporter. For him, the interviews were a coup – even though he compromised journalistic ethics by paying Nixon a fee for the chance to interview him extensively.

Brian P. Allen, artistic director for Good Theater and director for this show, sets up the play as a classic power struggle between two men with outsized goals.

"They both want and need something out of their agreement to do these interviews. They are both looking for something, but only one of them can win," Allen said.

In that sense, this is the classic Shakespearen play, with Nixon filling the role of the fallen king, conniving his next move while trying to ward off those who would destroy him.

Despite the implication of the title event, "Frost/Nixon" is not a two-man play with action centered on the set of a TV studio.

Instead, Morgan's play is about the time leading up to the interviews, and the behind-the-scene machinations that went on during the negotiations.

In that context, the interviews themselves make up a small, but vitally important, part of the overall play.

"Frost/Nixon" has a cast of 10. Beyond the title characters, the play introduces viewers to Nixon's agent, Swifty Lazar, and his chief of staff, Jack Brennan. On the Frost side, we meet his team of advisers, including Jim Reston and Bob Zelnick.

Jon Robert Stafford, a Boston actor, makes his Good Theater debut in "Frost/Nixon," playing David Frost.

The rest of the cast includes Good Theater and Portland theater regulars and newcomers: Craig Bowden, Paul Haley, Brent Askari, April Singley, Seth Berner, Michael Kimball, Bob McCormack and Janis Greim.

Reilly, who when not acting in local plays serves as artistic director of the American Irish Repertory Ensemble, has fallen in love with Nixon's "mellifluous, beautiful voice. He had a pleasant, resonant voice...