Review/Television; An Imaginary Meeting of Dr. King and Malcolm X

If the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X had met for an hour or so, what would they have found to say to each other? Jeff Stetson undertook to answer that question in a 1987 one-act play, an American Playhouse adaptation of which can be seen tonight at 9 o'clock on Channels 13 and 49. Although neither the clash of principles nor the affinity of personalities portrayed here offers any surprises, the scenes in which the men reveal the shared pain behind their very different philosophies of the racial struggle are compelling.

The division between the Southern Baptist minister who became America's pre-eminent exponent of nonviolent protest and the street-bred exponent of black self-defense, by violence where necessary, comes across sharply. Even when Mr. Stetson puts slogans into his characters' mouths (''No progress can come from violence''), their confrontation has considerable force.

That is a tribute to Jason Bernard, soft looking, even stuffy, yet immovable in his faith as Dr. King, and, particularly, to Dick Anthony Williams, repeating his original stage performance as an edgy, restless, fatalistic Malcolm X. He deepens the strain of bitter humor that Mr. Stetson has injected into the role.

''The Meeting'' takes place in 1965 in Malcolm X's room at the Hotel Theresa in Harlem. Dr. King's visit, at Malcolm X's invitation, displeases Malcolm X's Black Muslim bodyguard, a rather sketchy role that is meant to connect with Malcolm X's murder a few days later.

The director, Bill Duke, keeps the two main figures popping up from their chairs and down again, at times for no special reason, as if he did not trust their conversation to hold our attention. He cannot do much to reduce the awkwardness of Mr. Stetson's main addition for television, a surveillance team composed of a white F.B.I. agent and a black New York City detective; they are supposed to represent contrasting American attitudes toward the black leaders but seem just intrusive.

The introductory banter between the two men, as they probe for weaknesses, is amiably provoking. Malcolm X tells Dr. King that he almost visited him in a Selma, Ala., jail the previous week. When Dr. King observes that there was plenty of room there, Malcolm X, who had served time behind bars, says, ''I try not to visit jail voluntarily.''

To the accompaniment of quick snatches of newsreel footage of what seem to be lynchings and bombings of black churches, each of the men makes a strong case for his vision of freedom for their people and the best means of getting there. Malcolm X, who sees integration as ''the white man's solution for control,'' mocks the civil rights movement for ''sitting 'round a camp fire singing 'We Shall Overcome' while a cross is burning.''

Dr. King responds with a passionate defense of incremental victories, like the Voter Registration Act of 1965. Although Mr. Bernard sensibly does not try to imitate the eloquence of the original, he has clearly been attending to the cadences of that great preacher.

Once past the basic argument, the ideas that separated Dr. King and Malcolm X are not deeply mined, nor do the characterizations do justice to the complexities of either man. (See ''The Autobiography of Malcolm X'' for some of what is missing here.) And the ending melts into sentimentality.

The 90-minute play's central weakness is signaled in a press-release statement by Mr. Duke: ''Rev. King and Malcolm X really were trying to accomplish the same ends. Each of them, in his own charismatic way, was trying to achieve greater equity for the disenfranchised. Even though they had different ways of doing it, they had more similarities than differences.'' That reduces the men and their principles to competing brands of soft drinks.

Even with its defects, ''The Meeting'' knows better. The two visions of America expounded here cannot be so easily reconciled and the conflict continues to resonate.