TV REVIEW : Riveting ‘Meeting’ on ‘American Playhouse’

“Malcolm.”

“Reverend.”

Contemporary dramatists are inevitably intrigued by the “what ifs” of history, ranging from a merging of Che Guevara and Evita Peron in “Evita” to a fictional conversation between Malcolm X and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that forms the basis for Jeff Stetson’s play, “The Meeting.”

The “American Playhouse” production of the latter airs at 9 tonight on Channels 28 and 15.

Although essentially a replay of civil rights rhetoric from the 1960s, “The Meeting” is a fascinating exercise in speculative theater, featuring stellar performances by Dick Anthony Williams as Malcolm X and Jason Bernard as King in a contained environment perfect for TV.

This is that fine actor Williams’ third turn as Malcolm X, the first coming in the miniseries “King,” the second in the Off-Broadway production of “The Meeting.” Effectively directed here by Bill Duke, he and Bernard tap the conflicts that separated and the common denominators that joined these civil rights leaders from clashing worlds.

King, the Southern, small-town Baptist minister who answered racism with nonviolence, now looms as an epic figure in American annals. Malcolm X, the street-bred leader whose relative militancy terrified the white Establishment, is today a blurry footnote.

Both were assassinated at age 39. Would they have ultimately united? Stetson apparently thinks so.

“The Meeting” takes place on Valentine’s Day, 1965, the day after Malcolm X’s house has been bombed. The setting for the meeting, requested by Malcolm X, is a Harlem hotel room where a nervous Malcolm X awaits King with his scary, suspicious bodyguard Rashad (Paul Benjamin).

The civil rights leaders begin by parrying. Malcolm X to King: “Still the dreamer.” King to Malcolm X: “Still the revolutionary.”

They arm wrestle. They word wrestle. They lecture. They shout. They implore. Malcolm X to King: “At least--at least --get angry!” King to Malcolm X: “You want to free blacks; I want to free Americans!”

As it turns out, the meeting itself becomes a sort of liberating experience, with the acrimony between the two men ebbing and softening. They share laughter. They share dreams. They share mountaintops. They share a goal. And looming above all else, they will share a grim fate.

And what of the fates of the children whom King and Malcolm X, in their different ways, sought to free from the cycle of poverty keeping them in economic bondage?

That’s the question you ask yourself while watching Karen Goodman’s wonderful short film, “The Children’s Storefront,” which immediately follows “The Meeting” tonight.

It’s a brief but profound glimpse at a nonprofit, independent storefront school in Harlem for “the very, very poor urban black children” who have already been written off by the rest of society. Some were born to drug-addicted parents.

“The Children’s Storefront” is a sparsely narrated documentary that omits basic information about the school’s financing, its process of selecting students and its record of achievement or failure in its 13 years existence.

More importantly, what Goodman does do is capture hope tempered by realism. You see inquisitive young children wanting to learn. You see intelligence. You see spirit. You see bright eyes. And you wonder if the brightness will remain.

Is the school too little too late? “At what moment is the die cast?” asks the narrator.

More than anything else, “The Children’s Storefront” shows us how far we’ve come since the year of that fictional meeting between King and Malcolm X. And how much further we have to go.