Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – With Elevator Repair Service’s BALDWIN & BUCKLEY AT CAMBRIDGE, the eloquent arguments of James Baldwin continue to spout from New York stages

• By drediman
• October 3, 2022
• No Comments

Last night, The Public Theater commenced its busy fall theater season with the opening of Elevator Repair Service’s production of Baldwin & Buckley at Cambridge at the Anspacher Theater. Conceived by Greig Sargeant and the broader ERS collective, the work continues the experimental theater company’s stage manifestations of pre-existing texts/transcripts. In this case, the company has resurrected, verbatim, the 1965 debate hosted by the Cambridge Union between the renowned thinker and writer James Baldwin and the father of American conservative William F. Buckley, Jr.

Sadly still timely, Baldwin’s eloquent thoughts regarding American Civil Rights have been conspicuously spouting from New York stages as of late. Indeed, in productions like the american vicarious’s Debate: Baldwin vs Buckley and the Vineyard Theater’s Lessons in Survival: 1971, the great writer’s acutely observant musings have been consumable in theatrical form. Now ERS takes its stab, particularly at animating the famous debate regarding whether “the American Dream is at the expense of the American Negro”. Somber and to the point, the distilled hourlong piece mostly does away with the excesses and playful shenanigans that typically accompany ERS’s projects. Fascinatingly, the production concludes with an imagined epilogue scene between Baldwin and close friend playwright Lorraine Hansberry (the scene was concocted by April Matthis and Mr. Sargeant, both ERS company members), linking Baldwin & Buckley at Cambridge directly with The Public’s anticipated revival of Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun playing downstairs at the Newman. 

The production has been directed with minimal fussiness by John Collins, who eases the audience into and out of the historicaL debate through some stealthy and subtle manipulation of the fourth wall. The performances are accomplished – Mr. Sargeant makes for a necessarily regal and articulate Baldwin, and Ben Jalosa Williams is effective as a smugly elitist Buckley. Carefully calibrated performances also come by way of Daphne Gaines (Hansberry), Gavin Price (Mr. Heycock), and Christopher-Rashee Stevenson (Mr. Burford).

RECOMMENDED

BALDWIN & BUCKLEY AT CAMBRIDGE
Off-Broadway, Play
Elevator Repair Service at The Public Theater
1 hour (without an intermission)
Through October 23