By Charlotte Hansen | Syracuse University Goldring Arts Journalism Student
Syracuse Stage reopens to the public with a fully staged professional reading of “Baldwin vs. Buckley: The Faith of Our Fathers,” a transcription for the stage by Kyle Bass.
Bass is currently Stage’s resident playwright and the author of “Possessing Harriet” and the upcoming “salt/city/blues” (June 2022). Below he talks about the debate and the production, which has a performance at 7:30 p.m. today. Tickets are free but required and may be obtained at www.syracusestage.org or 315-443-3275.
The presentation of “Baldwin vs. Buckley: The Faith of Our Fathers” at Syracuse Stage is part of Syracuse University’s Artist in Residency Program with Carrie Mae Weems and the First Year Seminar for incoming students. Seating is general admission. Prior to entry patrons will be required to show proof of vaccination or proof of a negative Covid test result from either an antigen-type test prior to six hours of entry or a PCR-type test prior to 72 hours. Masks must be worn at all times in the theatre building. (Details at https://syracusestage.org/covid.php.)
Charlotte Hansen: How is the experience of watching your version different from watching the debate on YouTube?
Kyle Bass: It has a theatricality about it that is not inherent in the original debate, which was its own kind of theater. I use other texts to create a sort of theatrical structure with a prologue and the epilogue. We don’t start with the debate right away. We hear from Buckley and then we hear from Baldwin in standalone monologues, which are their own words. I didn’t create a word of this, I made a collage of things. Organization and assemblage; that’s the work I did. And these elements of collages and their juxtaposition to the debate—which is a word for word transcription of the BBC broadcast—are what set it apart from just watching the video.
CH: For the people who have seen the actual debate, what do you want them to take away from seeing it on stage?
KB: I was very attracted to Baldwin and Buckley as personas. Each of them had a very strong sort of presence. And I’m very interested to see how actors in 2021 inhabit these men, because they’re going to have to do so through their contextual lens, which is a current lens. I’m very curious about that. For some people, this will be their introduction to Baldwin. I’ve known Baldwin my entire literary career which began when I was like five! I think he’s one of the seminal American writers [but it] doesn’t necessarily mean people have read his work. Same for Buckley: known to many but hardly known to most.
CH: Why did you include the student debate?
KB: I thought it was important to set up sort of a “this is how these things go” so in juxtaposition we hear the students. Then it’s time for first, Baldwin to go, and now the announcer says, “Mr. James Baldwin will be bringing the voice of the real experience to the debate.” I love that he says that. That very juxtaposition which the announcer articulates, is one of the many reasons why I chose to keep the student debaters in this theatricalization of the debate.
CH: What do you hope to achieve by reviving the debate in a stage format as opposed to the virtual format?
KB: It already exists that way. There’s the video on YouTube of the actual debate you can watch. And on some level [doing the show virtually] would make it a very different thing. It’s the liveness of it on stage. Theater is not meant to be viewed on screens. That’s called cinema. That’s called television. Theater dies on the screen.
CH: If Baldwin and Buckley were here today, how do you think they would feel about seeing their work presented in a stage format?
KB: Baldwin would probably really love it because he really was bitten by the theater. He wrote two plays that were produced in New York and on Broadway in his time. He was very much a fan of the theater. So, I think he would be interested. I think Buckley would be really pissed off. He doesn’t come off well. But that’s not my doing. He did that to himself.
Syracuse Stage presents Baldwin vs. Buckley: The Faith of Our Fathers