Best of Enemies – Footnotes
The Footnotes to our episode on Best of Enemies include observations on how TV brought the political conventions of 1968 and the conflicts on the streets of America and in Vietnam into people’s living rooms in full colour; how the issues of the day then still preoccupy us today; and how the bruising encounter between Buckley and Vidal haunted both men ever after.
The world in colour
When the Republican and Democratic national conventions took place in the Summer of 1968, the audience at home in America were tuned into the events of their time in a way never seen before. First, because they were now seeing the world on their TV sets in lurid colour. In case you might think this a trivial point, the Republican party didn’t think so. Female delegates to their convention in Miami were advised in advance to consider carefully the colours of their wardrobe for the all-seeing cameras.
The ubiquitous TV coverage of the events unfolding in the streets of America, and beyond, in 1968 were brought vividly to life in a visceral way. It was impossible to escape the brutal realities of the race riots in the Southern states, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, and the horrors of the war in Vietnam. The graphic images of the latter beamed into America’s homes raised the intensity of the anti-war movement and earned the conflict the epithet “the living-room war”. The civil strife was certainly on show at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where Mayor Richard Daley had fortified the convention centre with barbed wire and over 20,000 police officers and armed National Guard. TV reporters and news journalists were actually caught up in the ensuing riots between the guards and anti-war protestors.
As Best of Enemies so dramatically demonstrates the antagonisms in the country came to be reflected in the media itself. ABC’s position as the fifth of three news networks led them to try something different in their convention broadcasting, what they playfully called their “unconventional convention coverage”. Their approach was distinctive at the time because they deliberately encouraged their presenters to offer “opinions”, not just the facts, as convention to date expected (sorry a pun too far). Of course as we look back at these historic TV skirmishes, we recognise the outline of polarised media discourse today, as newsman David Brinkley says in the play “all political discussion is now adversarial by default”. All of which reminds me that the additional voice along side the play-by-play reporter of a TV sports event came to be known as the “colour commentator”, enhancing and enlivening the story we’re being presented with.
The issues of the day
The issues that Vidal and Buckley locked horns over in 1968 still seem all too familiar to us today. They reflect some of the ageless arguments of Left and Right on the political spectrum. For example, the timeless debate over the role of government in optimising economic wealth and social equality. For Vidal “the Republican Party is based almost entirely on human greed”, championing free market capitalism that “puts profit before people”. Buckley proudly defends the primacy of the principle of freedom: “Freedom breeds inequality. Unless you have freedom to be unequal, there is no such thing as freedom”. Their language is echoed in the recent rhetorical battles in America between so-called ‘socialists’ and ‘libertarians’.
Buckley labels Vidal’s protests against the war in Vietnam as unpatriotic, an attack which Vidal predicts he’ll employ in the debate: “He’ll do that classic Conservative thing of equating any criticism of this country as being in some way unpatriotic. It’s always a slam dunk for the right.” The success of Trump’s slogan ‘Make America Great’ or the Brexit appeal to a bygone British supremacy suggest that patriotism remains a potent policy.
When in their Cambridge debate in 1965, Buckley attempts to paint James Baldwin as an advocate of violent racial revolution, we recognise the same vilification used by critics who labelled the Black Lives Matter protesters as ‘terrorists’.
The positions that Vidal and Buckley present in the original debates, and through most of the play, are polar extremes. In the fictional coda at the end of the play, however, the characters take a more moderate tone in expressing their arguments against the standard dogma of Left and Right. Buckley accuses Vidal of sneering at traditional conservative values: small-town America, patriotism, and faith in God. And Vidal characterises conservatism as a fear of change, “of the world altering into something that you don’t recognise, and can’t control”. Both seem to hit a nerve in these exchanges, affirming emotional truths underlying the positions they, and we, adopt.
Haunted
It’s not too much to say that both men were haunted for years after by their bruising encounter in the debates. Buckley felt compelled to publish a 12,000 word article in Esquire magazine a year later attempting to defend his blowup in the final debate. Vidal replied in the same magazine with a typically provocative piece that included the vivid image of Buckley’s outburst quoted in the play of how “a little door in William F Buckley’s forehead suddenly opened and out sprang that wild cuckoo which I’d always known was there…”. However in that article Buckley believed that Vidal had also implied that Buckley himself harboured homosexual tendencies, and Buckley sued him and the magazine. The law suit dragged on for three years before the magazine settled out of court, Buckley claiming victory.
Article by William Buckley,
Esquire magazine 1st August 1969
057 – Arms and the Man, by George Bernard Shaw
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G.B. Shaw’s Arms and the Man is both a sparkling romantic comedy and a telling satire of love, war and social pretension. It was Shaw’s first public success as a playwright when it premiered in London in 1894, and is currently enjoying an acclaimed revival at the Orange Tree theatre in Richmond, Surrey.
I’m joined by Shaw expert Ivan Wise, who is a previous editor of The Shavian, the journal of the Shaw Society.
056 – Good, by C.P. Taylor
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C.P. Taylor’s powerful, cautionary play Good charts how an ostensibly ‘good’ person can become not just complicit to evil behaviour, but an active participant. Professor John Halder’s creeping moral compromise as he joins the Nazi elite in 1930’s Germany is a disturbing reminder of the dangers of populist political crusades.
The play is currently being revived at the Harold Pinter theatre in London with David Tennant in the role of John Halder, and I’m delighted to be joined by the production’s director, Dominic Cooke, to explore the contemporary resonances of this provocative play.
055 – Spring Awakening, by Frank Wedekind
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Frank Wedekind’s dark, expressionist play Spring Awakening is a cautionary portrait of adolescent angst and rebellion against oppressive social strictures and family pressures. Its frank depiction of sex and violence remains shocking more than 130 years after it was written, and it is the unlikely source of the award-winning modern musical of the same name.
I’m delighted to be joined by Professor Karen Leeder to explore the contemporary controversies and enduring relevance of this extraordinary play.
The 2020 Theatre Diary – March
Before the theatres went dark this month I was lucky enough to see Caryl Churchill’s A Number at the Bridge, and spend more than seven hours in thrall to Robert Lepage’s Seven Streams of the River Ota at the National. Plus, some thoughts on what we miss when there is no theatre.
The 2020 Theatre Diary – February
Another great mix of shows this month, from Tom Stoppard’s new play, to Ibsen, Beckett and newer plays in smaller London venues.
The 2020 Theatre Diary – January
The January roundup included both classic plays, such as The Duchess of Malfi, Uncle Vanya and Three Sisters, as well as recent musicals Dear Evan Hansen and Girl from the North Country …
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