‘The Mountaintop’ Delivers a Powerful Message Through an Intimate Story
Photo courtesy of Milwaukee Chamber Theatre
How do you condense the impact of a seminal figure like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. into a 90 minute play? Katori Hall, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and writer of The Mountaintop took a unique approach. Instead of trying to tell the complete story of his life, consisting of thousands of meaningful and impactful moments, Hall narrowed in on one evening: April 3, 1968, the day before Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on the balcony of his hotel room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.
Saturday, March 9 was opening night of the performance, and nearly all of the 52 seats of the black box in Milwaukee Chamber Theatre were filled. Whispers about the play were circulating, and even audience members were caught up in opening night jitters. The audience knew they were in for a meaningful evening, and the theater team took the opportunity to make the event even more special for Milwaukeeans.
Milwaukee Chamber Theater honored County Executive David Crowley as the second recipient of the Mountaintop Legacy Award, a celebration of Black excellence in Milwaukee, honoring community members who work toward the same goals as Dr. King. The theater will give an award ahead of each performance of the play, with a total of 22 recipients.
“When I think about the legacy of Dr. King, I think about doing everything we can to lock arms and rise together,” said Crowley. Crowley, who considers himself a “community organizer that just happens to be an elected official” was an incredible man to honor for his boundary-breaking activism and service to the city.
Photo courtesy of Milwaukee Chamber Theatre
The whole play takes place inside a hotel room. It’s sparse. There is no music, no costume changes or fancy effects to create atmosphere. It’s all on the shoulders of Bryant Bentley (Cost of Living, Seven Guitars, Pipeline) and N’Jameh Russell-Camara (The Color Purple, Macbeth, Junk) who are saddled with the challenge to make this story come to life. There’s plenty to parse through in 90 minutes, and Director Dimonte Henning (Dutchman, Dream, Black Nativity) makes sure it’s happening at a steady clip.
The two-actor performance resulted in a unique and intimate look at the mountain of the man. It’s a challenge they rise to, and they do so well. It’s a slow burner of a story, showing a version of King that only a lucky few were privy to. A challenged, imperfect and ambitious man who we get to know through the lens of a stranger.
The story opens with a disheveled King (Bentley), arriving at his hotel on a rainy evening after delivering his famous speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” in support of sanitation workers in Memphis. He’s caught a cough from the rainy weather, he’s really craving a Pall Mall, and he’s pretty frustrated with the movement.
Camae (Russell-Camara), a maid at the hotel where King is staying. It’s Camae’s first day on the job. After King calls the front desk for a cup of coffee, a star-struck Camae delivers it to King’s room. After a flustered introduction, King asks for a cigarette, the two get to talking.
Photo courtesy of Milwaukee Chamber Theatre
King opens up about his struggles with his life and frustrations with the movement. He’s taking on a lot – racial equity, fair wages, the Vietnam war. His work is wearing him down, but there’s clear respite in his time with Camae. We also see the two flirt, and there’s some implication of a brewing tryst. “The mind is strong but the flesh is weak,” King says in the play.
The whole first half of the play goes this way – there is conversation and laughter. It reads as an honest interaction of two strangers getting to know each other. There’s a bit of a power imbalance, but Russell-Camara’s Camae works to even the playing field. But nearing the halfway point, I started to wonder, what is actually happening here?
In the beginning of the play, we see King look for recording devices in his hotel room. He opens the phone, checks in the lamps and behind curtains. He’s on edge and even though Camae is a stranger, she elicits some calmness. That’s until she uses King’s birth name, Michael. King, shocked, realizes he let a stranger in his room, and chose to trust her though he knew nothing about her. Who was this woman, and how did she know so much about him? And what is she here to do?
Bentley and Russell-Camara give an incredible overall performance, but succeed in the details as well. Russell-Camara is absolutely believable as a southern working woman. She’s lively, curious, straightforward and can really stand up to a man so rich in character as King.
There’s a point in the play where King asks her what she would say if she was given the opportunity to talk to thousands of people. All eyes were on Russell-Camara as she hopped on the hotel bed, wearing King’s suit, and gave a stirring speech that touched on the frustrations of King’s non-violent approach. This was perhaps her most powerful moment. She’s able to deliver a poignant message with all the solemnity we would expect from King himself.
Photo courtesy of Milwaukee Chamber Theatre
King has a particular cadence and accent that is hard to emulate. Bentley did really well with this, miming a similar cadence and definitely playing up the gravitas of his speeches. This is particularly well displayed in the closing of the play where – without giving too much away – Bentley gives a compelling speech that has the power to elicit so much emotion, just like the real King.
Photo courtesy of Milwaukee Chamber Theatre
The audience is left with the idea of picking up and passing the baton – that impactful and meaningful change takes collaboration through the generations. No one man, not even one as powerful as Martin Luther King Jr., can do it by himself. Time passes, progress is made, and sometimes, oftentimes, progress is stifled. Humanity has a long way to go, and it’s all our responsibility to pick up the baton and push us a step forward.
