Guildhall, Derby
Martin Luther King's pursuit of a dream must have meant that he suffered a fair few nightmares as well. Katori Hall's two-hander, which won last year's Olivier award for best new play, depicts a dark night of the soul in a Memphis motel room that we know to be the civil rights leader's last hours on earth. Strangely, King appears to know it, too, having rung down for room service and received rather more than he bargained for. Camae is a young chambermaid who explains that it is her first night on the job, though she does not appear overawed by the preacher's presence. Rather, she seems to know a remarkable amount about his past and, more disturbingly, his immediate future.
Hall does a remarkable job depicting the banal side of martyrdom. Ariyon Bakare's anguished King is less an inspirational leader than a tired, lonely man receiving terrible presentiment that this cheap motel room is to be his tomb. And Ayesha Antoine's straight-talking chambermaid seems to voice his innermost fears, brusquely informing him his feet smell and his peaceful protest marches may be insufficient: "You can only get so far by walking."
If Tom Attenborough's production does not quite make the distinction between presenting a play and delivering a sermon, this regional premiere is quite a coup for Derby ahead of the Broadway version featuring Samuel L Jackson and Halle Berry. And it remains forthright in Hall's assertion that God does exist, and that she is black.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/mar/23/the-mountaintop-review
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