The Mountaintop at Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum Theatre – review

When it begins, The Mountaintop looks like it’s going to be a naturalist drama, and if it is one, then it has a fantastic subject: Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s final night alive.

It’s set in King’s room in the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on the evening of 4 April 1968, just a few hours before King was assassinated by James Earl Ray. In the opening scene, King staggers into the room through a storm, having just delivered his “I’ve been to the mountaintop” speech to an audience of thousands, and he orders room service; a coffee which is brought to his room by Camae, a maid at the motel. So Katori Hall’s script sets the audience up for a tight two-hander that looks set to explore recognisable topics such as the different ways to achieve Black civil rights, or King’s attraction to women to whom he isn’t married.

Quickly, however, things become surprising. The set begins to disintegrate, and there’s a suggestion that the raging storm might not be a natural one. The dialogue takes a turn in an unexpected direction, and a whole different world opens up that’s much more dream-like and spiritual, almost eschatological.

At first, the twist is confusing, but it becomes exciting as the sparring of the two characters takes a twist towards the eternal. It’s at this point that Hyemi Shin’s set really comes into its own as it morphs, twists and insinuates in a manner that you aren’t led to expect from the opening sequence. It’s rare to see a show where the set is like an extra character that plays such an expressionistic role, and it’s an invigorating experience to witness a drama where the language and the staging collaborate so successfully to deepen the audience’s involvement.

However, the turn in the drama is a problem, too. The transition from A to Z isn’t a smooth one, and for a long chunk in the middle, the play doesn’t seem to be at all sure of what it is. Is it a history, a personal journey, a reflection, a dream, a fantasy, or something else altogether? It’s often quite difficult to detect where the line lies, and some of the surreal touches (a pillow fight, a phone call to God) jar a bit too much. Hall’s script seems to take quite a long time to figure out where it’s going, or it spends too long teasing the audience, so that the final payoff feels like it could have arrived at least ten minutes earlier.

It’s held together by Rikki Henry’s focused production and by the two performances. Caleb Roberts has worked hard to get King’s diction right without doing a mere impression. He has pretty much nailed the musicality of the conversational cadences and the massively expanded vowel sounds, and the fact that he doesn’t much look like King never seems to matter. In contrast to his considered declamations, I often found it harder to keep up with Shannon Hayes, whose staccato voice rips through her lines at speed, but she’s a strong sparring partner who deepens as the play develops.

They both demonstrate enough charisma to hold together a play that’s sometimes baffling and often perplexing, but certainly one of the more memorable shows I’ve seen this year.