Writer: Katori Hall
Director: Nathan Powell
Memphis, April 3 1968. Martin Luther King has delivered his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech and is alone in his hotel room. The rain has given him a bad throat, and he craves a cigarette and a cup of coffee. A loud clap of thunder makes him cower for a moment, then he settles and calls room service. While he waits he reflects on how much he’s taken on – civil rights, equality and fair pay, the Vietnam war. Camae the maid arrives with his coffee – she’s star-struck. He asks her for a cigarette and they smoke together. They talk, they flirt, and it feels as though some sort of romantic tryst may be the main theme during a slow-burning first 45 minutes – but as they chat her questions and comments start to become more challenging, more provocative, until she reveals something that will completely upend his life plans.
After that slow start The Mountaintop becomes an intense and incredibly powerful piece of theatre, as years of difficulties and successes, of speeches and attacks all become compressed into the action of one night played out in a single act drama. Camae forces Dr King to reflect on his legacy, on the things that make us human, his ambitions and his flaws, and the realisation that no one person can ever guarantee seeing the results of their work, and the baton will always need to be passed to someone else.
Ray Strasser-King (King) and Justina Kehinde (Camae) turn in emotionally-charged and powerfully delivered performances in this two-hander which must leave them drained and exhausted by the end. Once the pace starts to pick up it’s relentless, and director Nathan Powell ensures that it never loses momentum. Martin Luther King had a particular and recognisable intonation and delivery of his speeches, and Strasser-King does a remarkable job of delivering his dialogue in the same style. At one point King invites Camae to tell him what she’d say, and Kehinde shows that she is equally adept at copying the style.
It’s all played out in a seemingly small and simple hotel room set, but designer Lulu Tam has a trick up her sleeve as the room opens up – a reflection of King’s life and frailties being exposed to public view, creating a wider and artificial world for his past to be played out in as we watch memories of things that aren’t always general knowledge.
As we head into Black History Month this is a particularly appropriate time for The Mountaintop to be staged, and by coincidence here at the Curve it is playing this week alongside Hairpsray, which takes a lighter but no less important approach to the subject of racial equality and civil rights. Towards the end we are faced with a barrage of images and video clips, a reminder of how far we’ve come and yet how much further there is to go. It feels like a call to action, a warning that rights that were so hard to win are too easily removed by powerful lobbies and politicians.
Sometimes moving, sometimes funny, it’s a significant and intense piece of theatre that will leave you thinking long after you’ve left the theatre.
Runs until 5 October 2024 and on tour
Emotionally-charged
The Reviews Hub Score
