April 23 (Bloomberg) -- There is no doubt that ``Frost/Nixon,'' now imported from London to Broadway, is rattling good theater. What is open to question is how good it is as history. A historical play presents a powerful dilemma: how much fact, how much playfulness? To manage both equally would require the combined gifts of a Bernard Shaw and Mandrake the Magician, not readily come by.

Peter Morgan, the British author whose first play this is, has proved his mettle with numerous TV scripts and two fine films: ``The Queen'' and ``The Last King of Scotland.'' His talents for imagining what may have happened behind the scenes and what could have been said in private are formidable.

He also has a further resource: British wit. During the flight to California to interview Nixon, TV talk-show host David Frost picks up the sophisticated Caroline Cushing, his future girlfriend and helper. Upon his advice to follow a Viennese drinking practice, she deflatingly replies, ``I've never been to Vienna.'' Frost responds, ``You'd like it. It's like Paris without the French.''

A bit later, Caroline remarks, ``They said you were a person who defined the age we live in.'' Topping Frost's flattered, ``Really?'' comes her puncturing, ``You and Vidal Sassoon.''

Noel Coward, Too

From this and much else, it follows that Morgan has not only studied the careers of Nixon and Frost but also schooled himself on Noel Coward and Oscar Wilde. Having worked so much in television, he was also able to have Jim Reston, his narrator, succinctly epitomize Frost: ``A man with no political convictions ... who had never voted in his life. But someone who had one big advantage over all of us. He understood television.'' Which meant, among other things, full grasp of the revealing power of the close-up.

Morgan also knows he must show the strengths and the weaknesses of both men. So he makes Nixon as sympathetic as can be without obscuring the damning facts, and Frost impure in his seemingly laudable crusading motivation. The result is a combat of titans with powerful weapons but also major chinks in the armor.

This is where the two superb leads come in. Frank Langella makes Nixon clever without glorification, Tricky Dick without repulsiveness, unsparing in the growls without stressing the jowls. From Michael Sheen, Frost gets charm without lovableness, smartness not without stumbles; morally he is at best a fascinating, off-white knight.

Full of Movement

Morgan and his gifted director, Michael Grandage, have filled the stage with as much movement as possible. Every distracting detail of the TV studio is exploited for maximum color and suspense. Even transoceanic flight is dramatically enlivened by interruptions from a solicitous stewardess and the captain's hortatory messages.

Throughout, we get the eponymous debate both on stage and on a vast overhead grid of screens that magnifies all-important TV advantages and disadvantages -- not least the final flummoxed face of the cornered Nixon in stop-motion. The designer, Christopher Orum, provides an elegantly uncluttered unit set and evocative costumes; there are electrifying sights and highly suggestive noises from the lighting and sound designers.

Noteworthy, too, is the supporting cast, with flawless work from Stephen Kunken, Corey Johnson, Remy Auberjonois, Stephen Rowe and Armand Schultz as the debaters' abetting string- pullers, plus a luminous performance by Sonya Walger as Caroline.

``Frost/Nixon'' is as good as a play can get without being great. Nowadays, that is much more than enough.

``Frost/Nixon'' is running at the Jacobs Theater, 242 W. 45th St., Manhattan. Information: +1-212-239-6200; http://www.frostnixononbroadway.com.

(John Simon is the New York drama critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer on this story: John Simon in New York at jis1925@aol.com.

Last Updated: April 23, 2007 00:15 EDT