The Mountaintop is Katori Hall’s telling of the last night on earth for assassinated civil rights leader Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Hall’s play shows King as a visionary, yet ultimately human.
Alkinos Tsilimidos’ direction, while nuanced, comes with a stinging punch. His years as a filmmaker illuminating the shadows of the human character serve him well as a theatre director.
He has the ability to create tension, to generate weight and at the same time illuminate action.
Tsilimidos has the capacity to unravel personalities, he works well with human frailty, yet he never underestimates strength.
It’s 1968, a cold and wet night and King is in the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. He orders a coffee and fretfully waits for one of his colleagues to bring him a packet of Pall Mall.
Dr King is frayed, his feet are sore and we feel his tired body, his middle age weariness. Bert LaBonté fashions a portrayal of King as erudite, funny, passionate and at times arrogant, yet a man burdened by fear and uncertainty. King has been to the ‘top of the mountain’ glimpsed the ‘promised land’, a land that seems more distant now than ever before.
Zahra Newman plays the motel maid Camae with piquancy. She flirts with King and we are all seduced. Camae is working class, far from King’s African American middle class world of academia, religion, politics and power – or is she?
The sassy mind-tag of war between Camae and King is great to watch, sexual tension, moral ambiguity, yet things turn. Camae makes King question his prowess and achievements. Hall’s use of authentic late 1960s African-American argot propels the play. It is scatological, poetic and sharp.
King’s past triumphs, the marches on Washington DC, the Nobel Peace Prize, are fading. The FBI have him under surveillance, death threats rain on him, his flock and the Black Panthers challenge his philosophy of non-violence.
Sparse lighting, sound and design enhance the surprise. Designers Shaun Gurton, Matt Scott and Tristian Meredith bring Tsilimidos’ cinematic aesthetic to life. It is impossible to reveal the hook without spoiling the play.
When Camae is revealed, Martin Luther King Jr. breaks down, rails against God and asks, “Who will carry the torch?”
He composes himself and with a powerful speech he is again the inspirational brave visionary that was Dr Martin Luther King Jr.
We are left with the ultimate question, can any of us carry the torch?
The Mountaintop by Katori Hall, Directed by Alkinos Tsilimidos, Dr Martin Luther King Jr. played by Bert LaBonté, Camae played by Zahra Newman, is on until the 18 December at
MTC, Fairfax Theatre Arts Centre