Photo Credit: Liz Lauren
On April 4, 1968, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was fatally shot by convicted felon James Earl Ray on the balcony outside of Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. King’s assassination sparked weeks of riots in cities across America.
No one really knows how King spent his last night on Earth, but if he had had a premonition of his death would things have gone differently? That’s more or less the thesis that drives the narrative of The Mountaintop, the first production in American Players Theatre’s 2021 season.
The Spring Green troupe had cancelled its entire 2020 season due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. Playwright Katori Hall’s 2009 two-character fantasy about life, death and duty directed by Ron OJ Parson introduces APT’s new, albeit abbreviated season with powerful racial themes that, unfortunately, still ring true in 21st century America.
To reveal any more of the plot would upend the production and its surprises, but it’s fair to say that Hall’s sometimes uneven narrative provides context for powerful performances by actor Gavin Lawrence as King and Sola Thompson as Camae, the hotel worker who brings King a cup of coffee late on the night of April 3 and stays to change the course of history.
The play, performed within the intimate confines of APT’s Touchstone Theatre, carries a power that befits its theme. But Hall’s flights of fancy don’t always click with the nature of the narrative. The story’s dramatic arc, fueled by the charm and warmth of Lawrence’s King and the salty, no-nonsense street language of Thompson’s tough-talking Pall Mall-smoking Camae, takes too much literary license, spending much of it frivolously and occasionally trapping its richly developed characters in contrivances that undermine the gravitas of the historical event. Audience members chuckle at first, but eventually find the joke has gone on a little too long.
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That’s not to say The Mountaintop doesn’t pack a punch, and production designer Jason Fassl created a remarkably accurate reproduction of King’s Lorraine Motel room, which is now part of the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. At an approved 25 percent socially distanced capacity, the 201-seat Touchstone hosted only about 60 people for its Saturday matinee. The familiar concessions also had been removed, and the APT campus itself had a desolate feel to it.
Despite the shortcomings, The Mountaintop carries a powerful message made even more so by a closing audio-visual montage created by Mike Tutaj that’s spellbinding in its content and execution. As the house went dark at the play’s close, a woman in the audience could be heard openly weeping. That may be the first time that’s happened during an APT production, but since this was the play’s opening weekend, it likely won’t be the last.
The Mountaintop runs through June 19 at American Players Theatre, 5950 Golf Course Road, Spring Green, Wisconsin. For more information visit americanplayers.org.
