Review: ‘Debate: Baldwin vs. Buckley’ makes riveting history at Ebony Repertory Theatre
- Anita W. Harris
- May 6
- 5 min read
It seems that our current times are fraught with disagreement, one side against another, centering on issues of power, race and privilege. But these same tensions have simmered in America for generations, often straining the very fabric of our nation.
Amid the passion and turmoil at the height of the Civil Rights Movement in the mid-1960s, for instance, writer and civil-rights activist James Baldwin engaged in a debate with white conservative writer and commentator William F. Buckley, Jr., though not on American soil.
Sponsored by the debating society of England’s Cambridge University in February 1965, the two powerhouse intellectuals argued on the proposition “The American dream is at the expense of the American Negro.”
The debate was televised and rebroadcast in the United States afterward as well. Though it included other speakers on each side of the issue, it became known as the Baldwin-Buckley debate as these were its two most prominent speakers.
It’s their speeches that Ebony Repertory Theatre is presenting in “Debate: Baldwin vs. Buckley,” enacted by two excellent actors portraying Baldwin (Teagle F. Bougere) and Buckley (Eric T. Miller), along with two younger men introducing each side of the topic — David Heycock (Cole Wagner) supporting the statement to be true and Jeremy Burford (Frankie Zabilka) framing the conservative view that Buckley then elaborates.
Adapted and directed by Christopher McElroen — the founding artistic director of the american vicarious (TAV), an interdisciplinary arts group exploring American identity — the performance begins with a glimpse of the television broadcast of the debate, showing in black-and-white a sea of hundreds of students and others who had gathered at Cambridge to witness it.
The television is at the back of Ebony Repertory’s bare stage, with audience members seated in chairs on the stage around it. In the middle are chairs for the two younger men and for Baldwin and Buckley. As the men enter the stage from a side door at the same time as they do in the video, we join the televised audience in applauding them. In this way, we are meant to be that audience as the men enact verbatim the speeches given that night.
The men are formally dressed in tuxedoes, as per the custom of the debate society, except Baldwin in a blue-gray suit and tie. Buckley’s shoes are much shinier than Baldwin’s, and he sports a certain flair to his tuxedo. He is examining a folder of papers preparing for his speech as the younger men introduce the issue while Baldwin simply listens intently, sometimes shifting in his seat, frowning or looking down.
Baldwin presents his case first. And here’s where things get interesting, both theatrically and intellectually. Bougere beautifully embodies Baldwin’s articulate passion in explaining how one cannot separate American industrial and economic progress from the enslaved and underpaid African American labor that built it — which includes himself as a Black man. Both concrete and emotive about how his race is woven into the economic foundation of the country, Baldwin’s speech is persuasive and compelling.
When it’s Buckley’s turn to present the dissenting argument, he uses a lot of statistics (which the younger conservative speaker had done as well), supporting how African Americans were not as economically disadvantaged or disenfranchised from the American dream as the statement “The American dream is at the expense of the American Negro” would make it seem.
He also references Baldwin’s own books, such as “Go Tell it on the Mountain” and “Another Country,” in questioning Baldwin’s statements, and implies that Baldwin cannot say he has been metaphorically a slave or disadvantaged Black man. He ends, somewhat ominously, by asking what the answer to the problem could be and saying that if Baldwin means to overthrow existing power institutions, white America will fight back.
Miller captures Buckley’s mannerisms well without exaggerating — a hands-in-pockets casual comfort in addressing the issue, like a postured thoughtfulness, and a self-assured sense of rightness in presenting statistics and speaking on behalf of the powers that be.
Both men make eye contact with the audience seated around them as they present, engaging with them when they smile or frown, sometimes standing over them while speaking, even admonishing a woman who took out her cellphone (though she took it in good spirit).
In this way, we are drawn into the debate, which is literally brought to life and made viscerally real before us, at least in terms of the two prominent public figures. The rest is suggested by the television broadcast, which we cut back to periodically, such as when the president of the society says that those supporting the validity of the statement have won by a landslide of hundreds of votes.
But then, maybe we knew it would, not just because of the fervor supporting Baldwin shown in the broadcast, even in England, but perhaps our own biases as an audience who would attend such a performance in the first place, especially at Ebony Repertory Theatre.
It’s easy to root for Baldwin in this performance, not just because of his brilliant eloquence, but because we feel how he righteously positions himself within the framework of what he argues. By contrast, it’s hard not to think of Buckley as “the bad guy,” to smirk a little when he searches his papers for statistics, for instance, even as we willingly hear him out — in part thanks to Miller’s ability as an actor to humanize his elitism.
It would have been nice to have more of a back-and-forth between them during the debate, but that wasn’t its structure, and also perhaps have a question-and-answer afterward to help process the experience. Wren T. Brown, Ebony Rep’s artistic director, later said that though they’ve had Q&As before, some participants would “hijack” the conversation so the theatre decided to allow the performance to speak for itself.
And that it does. “Debate: Baldwin vs. Buckley” is the kind of philosophically and intellectually interesting experience we don’t often have except perhaps in college, and even then, arguments are not brought to life in ways they can be in a theatre, even with minimal staging. Especially now, as certain strides in civil liberties and institutional protections seem to be dissolving, experiencing such debates or speeches may give us the necessary perspective to persevere.
“Debate: Baldwin vs. Buckley” continues through May 11 at Ebony Repertory Theatre in the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center, 4718 W. Washington Blvd., Los Angeles, with performances Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 3 p.m. For tickets and information, call the box office at 323-964-9766 or visit Ebonyrep.org. Run time is approximately 1 hour with no intermission.
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