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In 1965, two men took the stage for a heated verbal sparring match in Cambridge, with the writer James Baldwin facing the conservative intellectual William F. Buckley Jr. The former dismantled the myth of the American dream, arguing that it was created at the expense of African-Americans. The latter defended the notion of the United States as a meritocracy, convinced that inequality comes down to individual effort rather than a history of oppression. Two visions of the world collided in a debate that has taken on mythic dimensions thanks to archival footage.
Using the verbatim transcript, the New York theatre company Elevator Repair Service revives this clash of ideologies while bridging the gap between a text from another era and our contemporary reality. Each sentence hits hard, each silence ratchets up the tension. Language becomes a battleground—but also an opening for new possibilities, an invitation to “rebuild the house” of a divided nation. Here, ERS once again go beyond merely quoting words, bringing them to thrilling life in the present and challenging a country that whitewashes its history.
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