here's a review I wrote for another website:

FROST/NIXON may not be a great play but it is, without question, a great production of a very good play. Historically completely accurate? The play’s major weakness is that it plays fast and loose with some of the facts and chronology for the sake of entertaining its audience; but without those liberties, it is unlikely that the audience would come or that the actors would have been able to develop their nuanced and electric performances. For audiences in need of smart and facile writing and relevant plot, as well as characters realized in the finest of dramatic forms and direction that makes it all look easy, a visit to the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre is in order.

Don’t be misled by the title. FROST/NIXON is not a two-character play although the two lead characters, Richard M, Nixon and David Frost, portrayed respectively by Frank Langella (who can start right now making a place on his mantelpiece for his next Tony) and British thespian Michael Sheen (seen widely earlier this year as Tony Blair in the film THE QUEEN – also written by Peter Morgan) dominate the plot and the stage, the supporting cast of eight help to give the play the depth and breadth it needs.

The play tells the back-story of the famous series of interviews that Frost did with ex-President Nixon in which he did what no other interviewer had been able to do - get Nixon to admit that he had abused his office and power and let down the American people. Frost was a creature of television; he lived and breathed it and it defined him. Nixon, as is widely known, was a victim of television – his flop sweat during his debate with John F. Kennedy and his non-photogenic qualities that left him flat and unappealing to viewers. Morgan has written that he interviewed most of the people involved in negotiating the interviews and preparing Frost and Nixon but he uses the dramatic form and license to make history come alive and keep the tension high.

Langella and Sheen do a pas de deux within the larger choreography of power, privilege the media and need. It is a political and show biz boxing match with the support team of each fighter in his corner to offer strategy, patch up the cuts and send their man back into the ring. Nixon is looking for renewed respect and public redemption; Frost was on the ropes at a diminishing point in his career and is desperate for the “get” to re-establish his credentials.

During the run-up to the interviews, both men (and the audience) get a deeper and more personal look into the motivations and desires of these highly complicated men. And, a fictional late night phone call form Nixon to Frost is both humanizing and chilling (and Langella gets the rare ovation after a monologue in the middle of a performance). In the final interview, Frost and Nixon jab and feint and the knockout blow comes only after liberal Nixon-hating journalist Jim Reston (well-played by Stephen Kunken) discovers some overlooked transcripts and triumphantly presents the information to Frost. Frost’s attack and relentless pressure sends Nixon down for the count.

Michael Grandage’s direction is a model of economy and tautness and flows in an apparent effortlessness. Even the moments of silence are full. The design concept, which includes a large paned video screen is used for most of the production us a backdrop of vintage videos which set the time and place. However, it takes on a more immediate and Big Brother aspect when employed to broadcast the interviews and enlarge Langella’s face in harrowing close-up during the seminal interview. It’s the rare theatre experience when one knows in the first minutes that the director and his cast has it all under control and that the audience can sit back, relax and go for the ride.

FROST/NIXON is a production of skill and style; Langella/Sheen are a combination of electricity and bravura.