REVIEW: The Mountaintop (Royal Lyceum Edinburgh)

The Mountaintop — ★★★★½ — Electric

Royal Lyceum Edinburgh: 31 May – 21 June
Review by Rebecca Mahar
 
The Mountaintop is Katori Hall’s speculative exploration of final hours of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life; a fictive, and sometimes explosive, burrowing into the psyche of a man who became a modern legend. Presented by the Royal Lyceum in a bold new staging from director Rikki Henry, The Mountaintop deconstructs the legend and displays the man, in all his foibles, questioning how he might have reflected on his own legacy— and the progress he, and his country, had yet to make.
 

Caleb Roberts as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Pic: Mihaela Bodlovic.

Opening just before midnight on April 3^rd, 1968, the play begins with Dr. King staggering into his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He collapses to the floor, exhausted, as a storm rages outside; the same storm that had, hours before, punctuated his speech at the Mason Temple, where he rallied support for striking sanitation workers. Wracked by coughing, King calls room service for coffee.
 
The coffee arrives in the hands of Camae (short for Carrie Mae), a shrewd and enthusiastic maid who is more than she first appears. An angel of the Lord, Camae has been sent by God to bring Dr. King over to the other side after his death on April 4^th. But King isn’t ready; even when confronted with proof of Camae’s divinity, he pleads for more time to advance his causes.
 
Caleb Roberts as King and Shannon Hayes as Camae are exceptional in this hefty two-hander, requiring range, depth, and relentless energy from both its actors.

Caleb Roberts as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Shannon Hayes as Camae. Pic: Mihaela Bodlovic.

Roberts embodies a carefully studied but not overwrought impersonation of Dr. King; recognisable, without subordinating his performance to perfection. The demands of the part are great, even without the necessity of resembling a real person: from King’s exhaustion, to his suave, slightly aggressive flirtatiousness, to his despair, bargaining, and final exhortation of the audience to carry on what he’s begun, Roberts navigates his role with both power and vulnerability.
 
Hayes is superb as Camae, deftly handling the character’s many layers with extraordinary skill, her excellent comedic timing also responsible for most of the show’s laughs, often unexpected in such a setting. Camae’s honesty drives the play, and Hayes’s ability to balance her truthful responses to meeting Dr. King in person, with the foreknowledge and responsibility she holds, allow the character, and the play, to work.
 
Katori Hall’s brilliant script is unvarnished, despite its supernatural and speculative elements: she works to present as truthful as possible a picture of Dr. King, pulling back the mist from his myth. She shows him as a man unfaithful to his wife, arrogant, unmoored, with stinky feet and holes in his socks; privately railing against “my country tis of thee, my country doles out constant misery”; in short, as a human— just a man, nothing more, nothing less.

Caleb Roberts as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Pic: Mihaela Bodlovic.

That’s the trick, though: like every real person made into legend, King was only human. However, in his case, the creation of his mythology can be seen to work against his cause; by holding him up as an unmatchable paragon, the perceived ability of others to carry on his work is lessened. Like always presenting photos of Dr. King in black and white, when his life was lived, and often recorded, in colour, it serves to distance the figure from the fact, and the ongoing fight he represents. 
 
Bernice A. King, the youngest child of Dr. King and Coretta Scott King, is a lawyer and activist who participates in #MLKInColor, and reminds her social media audience that her father was never universally beloved or considered a perfect paragon; he was jailed, branded a radical, and ultimately, murdered for his beliefs and actions. 
 
Hall’s version of King embraces both sides, acknowledging the extraordinary person Dr. King was, while forcefully reminding her audience that he was just a man. And it’s in that recognition of humanity that the heart of the story lies; if one person can do it, anyone could; and anyone who can, must, carrying their flaws with them. 

Caleb Roberts as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Shannon Hayes as Camae. Pic: Mihaela Bodlovic.

Why me? King plaintively asks, towards the end of the play; Why not you? Camae replies.
 
The baton passes on. The race isn’t over yet, and The Mountaintop reminds us that we are living this history still; from black and white to living colour and the continuing march towards the Promised Land of equity, justice, and peace; from the Mountaintop, to the Hill We Climb, and on. And on.

 

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Full audio of Dr. King's I've Been to the Mountaintop speech: https://youtu.be/ixfwGLxRJU8

Video excerpt of the speech in colour: https://youtu.be/zgVrlx68v-0

Amanda Gorman delivering her poem The Hill We Climb: https://youtu.be/LZ055ilIiN4

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Running time: Approximately ninety minutes with no interval
Venue: Royal Lyceum Edinburgh, 30b Grindlay Street EH3 9AX
Run dates: 31 May – 21 June 2025
Time: Tues-Sat 7:30pm; Weds & Sat mats 2:30pm
Access performances: Weds 11 (7:30pm) & Sat 21 (2:30pm) will be captioned; Weds 18 (7:30pm) will be BSL interpreted; Thu 12, Sat 14 (2:30pm) & Thu 19 will be Audio Described and have a Touch Tour.

For more information and to book tickets, visit the Lyceum website here.