Katori Hall’s 2009 play “The Mountaintop” isn’t new to San Diego theater audiences, but it feels particularly fresh and immediate in its third, and best, local production at New Village Arts.
The staging that opened Saturday at the Carlsbad theater not only benefits from an excellent cast, great direction and visually stunning projections; It also feels acutely timed for today’s hopelessly divided America. By contrast, “The Mountaintop” is a story about hope. It’s also about faith and it’s about standing up for other’s rights, no matter what the consequences.
The intermissionless, 100-minute play is set in Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn., on April 3, 1968. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. has just returned to his room after giving the prophetic “Mountaintop” speech at a local church in of a strike by Black sanitation workers. Less than 24 hours later, King would be assassinated on the balcony outside that room.
The taut and well-crafted play imagines King’s final evening, where he’s exhausted by the relentless pace of his activist work, questioning his mission, hounded by the press, suspicious of government surveillance and afraid for his life. Enter Camae, a pretty young hotel maid, who arrives with his cup of room-service coffee, an endless supply of Pall Mall cigarettes and some shocking news he may not want to hear.
Director Durwood Murray Jr. gradually builds the play’s pacing and tension to its powerful conclusion, and he confidently steers his actors away from clichéd speech patterns and behaviors that might be associated with the play’s characters.
Veteran musical theater and opera singer DeAndre Simmons feels perfect for the role of King. His deep, resonant bass voice reaches its full potential in the reverend’s moving and emotional final oration. But Simmons takes his time building his flawed character, who is soft-spoken in private, vain about his appearance and unfaithful to his wife.
Taylor Renee Henderson brings a wonderful spark, wit and sometimes disapproving side eye to her mysterious character of Camae. She makes Camae feels like a real person, even if this maid herself is not entirely corporeal.
Christopher Murillo has perfectly re-created King’s hotel room and Michael Wogulis’ projection design of starscapes and historic photos and videos is outstanding.
The play wrestles with big subjects, in particular King questioning why God would abandon him before his work on Earth is done. King’s struggle with temptation, doubt, faith and martyrdom mirrors the Biblical story of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane the night before he was betrayed.
When Hall wrote “The Mountaintop” in 2009, Barack Obama — this nation’s first Black president — was still riding out a honeymoon period with American voters. We know today that Obama’s election fanned the flames for a now-blazing White supremacy movement. But the play’s ultimate message inspires hope: When one runner in the race falls and drops the baton, others will pick it up and it along.
‘The Mountaintop’
When: 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays. Through June 22
Where: New Village Arts, 2787 State St., Carlsbad
Tickets: $25-$50
Online: newvillagearts.org
