The Mountaintop at Curve and on tour – review

It’s Wednesday, 3 April 1968. Martin Luther King Jr is irritable, and worried. He has delivered what will be known as his final speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”, and, in Memphis’s Lorraine Motel room 306 that night, he comes face-to-face with his mortality.

Lulu Tam has designed the set of the fatal room to scale, and at first, it gives the stillness of a museum exhibition. The audience becomes the fourth wall (‘Can I get an amen?’ he asks) with a forced perspective guiding your eye to the middle. King’s feet, wearing holey socks, sink into a plush mustard carpet as he anxiously awaits room service.

The arrival of Camae (an electrifying Justina Kehinde), as bright and stylish as her yellow uniform, shifts the tone. She’s a wind-up merchant; flirtatious and assured, parading around the room with ease. Her lightness amplifies the weight he carries.

Ray Strasser-King impressively splits the man from the martyr. We get a glimpse at ‘Michael’ and his vulnerabilities – he’s wary of the weather, jumping every time thunder crashes and his end is foreshadowed, he lies to his wife and panics about it, and he cannot be alone. It’s a moving interpretation of an inimitable figure.

Relentless rainfall turns into white noise (sound design by Jack Baxter) as internal storms rage inside. The beauty of Katori Hall’s writing is that naughty jokes tumble into religious sermons. Director Nathan Powell sets the pacing just right and allows the preacher every one of those 90 minutes he has left. Camae and King kick off their shoes, they crumple the terracotta bedsheets, they cuss, they drink coffee at midnight, and they share Pall Malls. They make a mess because it no longer matters.

But there are moments of peace. Phone numbers are slowly dialed on the rotary phone, ties are carefully undone and they talk about everything and nothing. The two comfortably sit in quiet, bathing in the warm light – Adam King subtly reduces the room to only them. There are some lovely surprises, too. Feathers, flowers, and even popcorn fall from the sky. It’s all done so tenderly that it pulls at your heart.

Dreamlike qualities blend beautifully with expletive language and talks of a future (phones without cords!) neither of them will see. In parts, The Mountaintop is wickedly funny, Kehinde’s performance in particular, but it’s desperately sad, too. A one-sided phone call with God is bittersweet, leaving us to fill in Her words and be haunted by them.

Camae’s closing monologue is accompanied by videos and photos outlining the horrors of recent history, including hatred that continues to burn across the UK, before it fades to black.