THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
Christopher McElroen
Wilton’s Music Hall, Graces Alley, London E1 8JB until February 7, 2026
I imagine that Christopher McElroen’s play, Debate: Baldwin Vs Buckley, arises out of an unspoken yearning and a desperate need for depth. Because, as deeply, deeply vital as the subject matter is, the central question of black suffering being the cost of the success of the American Dream, what astounds me even more was how much we need a play that challenges us hard to immerse ourselves in ideas. It’s perhaps more relevant now than when writer James Baldwin took on arch conservative William F Buckley Jr back in 1965 upon the debate stage of the Cambridge Union (the university’s historic debating society), particularly given the play was inspired by the bleak turning point in racial politics that was the murder of George Floyd in 2020.
We are in an age when we tend to traverse our respective paths of the universe responding to the pings and vibrations of viral videos with nothing but takes, takes, takes. Tucker Carlson owns the libs. Mehdi Hassan owns unapologetic American fascists. Ice owns ICE (hilariously) and all subtlety and nuance is flattened so that our brains can let it wash over us on the way down and make us feel warm and unchallenged on the inside.
Not with this play.
What is radical, I think, with Debate was what we did not see. In this verbatim staging of the actual historical event we did not see triumphalism, a takedown, or a gotcha moment. What we saw was a stage that fizzled and was thick with rhetorical passion, verbal deftness, a richly laid and complex case laid out on both sides.
What we felt, palpably, was the intense conviction on either side of the debate, ‘Is The American Dream At The Expense Of The American Negro?’
What we saw were two superb actors – Arnell Powell as Baldwin and Eric T Miller as Buckley Jr – in heated conflict, ideological sparks flying, brimming with fiery passion fueled on one side by the need to articulate a history of suffering and on the other a refusal to let go of the majesty of American mythology.
Making use of a bare stage, real historical footage, and four besuited performers to seamlessly represent history, american vicarious’ production is cutting edge in its attempt to bring intelligence back into the theater and to challenge audiences to think hard about issues from which most of us would rather turn and avoid.
While giving away the ending would not be doing anything except disclosing a matter of historical record, what was more fascinating was the quiet and sophisticated dignity with which each side walked off the stage. No viral moment. No spiking the ball. An acknowledgment of sustained conceptual conflict, ending not in antipathy and continued enmity, but a sense that words are not only enough but powerful and we can, as Americans, use our words and still respect each other at the end of the day.
Debate is subtle and powerful. It is the cerebrally nourishing, textually dense, richly rewarding, theatrical meal we didn’t know we hungered for, full of satisfying moral weight and gravity. And only in Wilton’s Way in Aldgate East for an extremely limited run.
