The Mountaintop goes beyond the martyr to the human side of Martin Luther King
Two-actor play imagines civil rights leader's last night before his assassination at Memphis motel
Next April, the United States will mark the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr's assassination amid racial tensions and social divisions reminiscent of 1968.
The modern echoes of that tense, violent year in American history are difficult to ignore in Memphis-born playwright Katori Hall's The Mountaintop, which makes its Montreal debut tonight at the Segal Centre.
Co-produced by Montreal's Black Theatre Workshop and the Neptune Theatre in Halifax, the two-actor play imagines King's last night before his murder at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4.
Set in his drab, no-frills room at the motel, the play begins with King returning from what would prove to be his last public address.
In that speech, now known as "I've Been to the Mountaintop," King brings up death threats against him and the possibility of his murder. He defies those who think killing him will kill the struggle for black equality and freedom.
"Like anybody, I would like to live a long life — longevity has its place," King said. "But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will and he's allowed me to go up to the mountain, and I've looked over and I've seen the Promised Land.
"I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised Land."
'The human side of MLK'
First performed in 2009, The Mountaintop mines the raw humanity evidenced by that now famous speech — the fear, the insecurity, the desire for a quiet life, and the courage to continue.
When it debuted in New York in 2010, the play starred Samuel L. Jackson as King and Angela Bassett as Camae, a sassy motel maid who brings King coffee and gets him talking for the play's duration.
The Black Theatre Workshop co-production features Tristan D. Lalla in the role of King and Letitia Brookes as Camae.
"Katori wanted to keep the cast small to really bring out the human side of MLK," Brookes told CBC Our Montreal host Sonali Karnick.
"This isn't the martyr, the man that the public knows — she wanted a more personalized sense of him, so that's why it's the two characters."
"I think Katori did a really good thing in making this a one-on-one with MLK and a one-on-one with someone he didn't know at all, and someone we don't know either, and wouldn't even suspect either," she said.
"The perspective from someone who is very 'common' and this huge iconic figure and … having them together at the basic human level, you get the perspective of his flaws, his private dreams that we don't hear about, his diffidence around actually doing this work."
Past meets present
Camae teases out those flaws and private dreams over the plays 90 or so minutes through jokes and pokes and prods.
"She's feisty, she's blunt, she's what every woman wants to be but may be scared to put out there," Brookes says of her character.
"She really tests him. She really calls him out on some things that aren't perfect about him and the movement, and his ways."
Camae represents the youthful impatience that was pushing back against King's commitment to nonviolence, and which the civil rights leader was desperate to keep in check.
"I think Katori did a really good job of relating the past to the present and what we're dealing with today."
'We can all do something'
mandiela said her hope for The Mountaintop is that it gives audience members a deeper sense of themselves, and their purpose.
"Our responsibility is to all support our dreams in different ways, whatever ways we can. So, I want folks to look at MLK, this story about MLK, and say, 'Oh yeah, that's him, and here I am, and who am I within this dreamscape?'"
Brookes says it's already had that impact on her.
"It made me think, 'What can I do? I'm not going to be a leader of a movement, but we can all do something in our own way to bring about the change that we want to see."
The Mountaintop starts tonight the Segal Centre's Studio and runs through Oct. 29. Tickets can be purchased through the Segal Centre or the Black Theatre Workshop.