Stacy Keach has racked up an impressive trophy case of iconic roles: Hamlet (three times), King Lear, Martin Luther, Ernest Hemingway, Mike Hammer. Now Keach has assumed the epic psyche of Richard Nixon. The national tour of "Frost/Nixon" lands Tuesday at the State Theatre in Minneapolis. Keach will spar with actor Alan Cox, who portrays David Frost, the former president's inquisitor in a series of 1977 TV interviews.

Keach faces a double-pronged challenge in bringing the character to stage. First is the indelible image that Nixon etched in the minds of many Americans -- those eyes, that voice, the hunched shoulders. Second, Keach is somewhat fighting the very present ghost of Frank Langella, who created his own interpretation of Nixon on Broadway in 2007 and is now an Oscar contender for the film version that recently opened nationwide. Langella's estimable portrayal succeeded in taking the Nixon facade and instilling it with his own understandings -- expanding Nixon into metaphor. Now comes Keach, who said he first thought he would decline the tour's invitation to play the role.

"People will make comparisons, for sure," he said in a phone interview. "But as a classical actor, with Lear or Hamlet or Richard III, there are many actors who have preceded me and made their mark on their own. I'm grateful to Frank. His success with the role created an environment in which I get to play it myself."

"Frost/Nixon" uses the interviews between Nixon and Frost as a historical backdrop for a power struggle between two men. As a political instrument, Peter Morgan's play offers the interviews as a journalistic "gotcha" moment. The broadcasts indeed drew a huge audience at the time, and Frost's people exulted when they got Nixon to utter the infamous punch line, "When the president does it, it's not a crime." Taken in the context of the moment, however -- to a nation at that point sated on Watergate's exhaustive public record -- Nixon's comments were surprising but not terribly revelatory.

Ego tug of war

More intriguing is the personal battle between two warriors, each of whom saw the other as a steppingstone. Nixon saw a truckload of cash ($600,000 in 1977) and a chance to refurbish his reputation. Frost saw a chance to take on an air of gravitas.

"David Frost had a great reputation as an intelligent human being, but he still had the reputation of being a gadfly, playboy, a television talk show host," said Keach. "For him to step into the world of journalism and become a real journalist -- which was his goal -- was a major step."

Playwright Morgan had made his name in TV and film ("The Queen," "The Last King of Scotland") when he sat down to explore the jousting match between Nixon and Frost. He immersed himself in Washington politics and dug into the memoir of James Reston Jr., whose memoir detailed his work as a researcher with Frost.

The play, as produced on Broadway, used a large backdrop of TV screens that projected the live stage action. That layer conveys in an unconscious way the exposure one must feel in a live interview. On one level, you're just talking; on another, your insecurities are being broadcast to millions of people. Nixon, a bundle of contradictions, was obsessed with how others saw him -- from the beads of perspiration on his upper lip to whether his collar was straight. Morgan, however, takes the action beyond the interviews in such telling moments as a phone call Nixon places to Frost on the eve of their most important session together.

"The phone call is the moment where he unveils the depth of his bitterness at the establishment not acknowledging their respect for him," Keach said. "Nixon was always searching for respectability."

Keach, 67, has one other presidential portrayal under his belt -- sort of. He played Lyndon Johnson in the notorious 1966 spoof "MacBird!," which used Shakespeare's Scottish play as the template for a satire of the president. He also is of an age that clearly recalls the national fixation over Watergate, particularly the period of televised hearings in the U.S. Senate.

"It was the beginning of reality television," he said. "We were glued to our sets and we got to know these people, like a political soap opera. 'West Wing' wouldn't have happened if not for Watergate."

Graydon Royce • 612-673-7299