Imagining Dr Martin Luther King Jr.’s last night on earth, Katori Hall’s Olivier award-winning play, ‘The Mountaintop’, directed by Nathan Powell. explores the multi-faceted life of the iconic civil rights leader as he reckons with his own mortality. With welcome invitation, the show exposes how tragedy and hope have shaped our past and will inevitably shape our future.
In room 306 of the Lorraine Motel, we meet Dr King (Ray Strasser-King) following his monumental, ‘I’ve Been to the Mountaintop’ speech. Still running on adrenaline, he calls room service, ordering a coffee to calm his nerves. But he gets more than he bargained for when the charming maid Camae (Justina Kehinde) presents with his beverage. The two get to talking, beginning the evening’s conversation that will be the focus of the play.
Initially, Camae and Dr King playfully flirt, but progress into deeper conversations regarding his hopes and fears as an activist. In the last week, Dr King led a demonstration supporting the Memphis sanitation workers. It had ended in tragedy. He despairs over the death of Larry Payne, the 16-year-old killed by police that same day.
Outside, a lightning strike mimics the sound of a gunshot. Overcome with stress, Dr King suddenly starts to panic. In calming him, Camae reveals her true identity as the ‘angel of death’, here to support Dr King through his final hours. She gently confirms that his assassination will occur tomorrow.
With his deepest fear now coming true, Dr King must reckon with his imminent mortality. Thus follows a dialogue filled with his stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally, acceptance. Amongst the back-and-forth, we learn more about Camae’s difficult journey to becoming an angel. After a final plea to God (where she hangs up the phone!), Dr King accepts his fate.
In the last moments, Camae presents a vision in the form of an emotional vignette projected on stage. Clips flash past, showing prominent civil rights events and individuals from the ’60s onwards. Camae accompanies the images with a chant, ‘The baton passes on’. Now addressing the audience, King makes a final speech imploring us to ‘carry the baton’ -to continue his work of activism and justice.
Despite discussing the heavy topics of civil rights, religion and faith, and life and death, ‘The Mountaintop’ is humorous and inviting. In consoling Dr King, Camae also tends to the audience’s emotions, ensuring their discussions don’t leave us feeling deflated.
Both Ray Strasser-King and Justina Kehinde were incredible to watch. Strasser-King made a convincing Dr King Jr, conveying both pride and humility with the quintessential intonation. Kehinde was electric from the moment she stepped on stage: charismatic, funny, and quick-witted. They performed with incredible chemistry, never faulting through the 100-minute running time.
When ‘The Mountaintop’ premiered in 2009, it was controversial for depicting Martin Luther King’s flaws, namely his infidelity towards his wife. However, in 2024, open discussion regarding the imperfections of thought leaders is relatively common. In particular, feminist discourse has progressed rapidly in the public domain. In this sense, ‘The Mountaintop’ may pack less punch than it did back then.
While I thoroughly enjoyed watching Strasser-King and Kehinde perform, I felt the script sometimes repeated itself. Understandably, Dr King’s grief was the focus, but it may have been nice to learn more about Camae and the context of Dr King’s work.
‘The Mountaintop’ is well worth watching purely for the stellar performances of Strasser-King and Kehinde. The show is an insightful thought experiment into how we process life and death and shares an important message for civil justice. The final scenes are truly touching, leaving me with a deep sense of how far we’ve come and how far we have to go.
Need to know: The Mountaintop plays at Stratford East until 2 Nov 2024 | See listing
