The Mountaintop is the first work by American playwright Katori Hall written when she was still in her 20s. It premiered in 2009 in a small theater in London but after receiving strong reviews was moved to the West End where it garnered a string of awards for the playwright. In 2011 it was produced on Broadway in a well received production starring Samuel L. Jackson making his Broadway debut in the role of Dr. King with Angela Bassett in the role of Camae. Ms. Hall’s youth may account for the original and startling perspective that she brings to the story of this most important of historical figures.
This play is a fiction about a historical figure—a conjecture on historical events and a creative "what if" on the part of the playwright. While the play begins realistically, it transitions to using imagination and magic in order to discuss ideas that are too large to be contained by realism. Ben Brantley, reviewer for the New York Times, calls the play a "fable for grown ups".
Neither is the play a work of theology. It does not pretend to propose a well-reasoned or deeply spiritual assertion about the relationship of human beings and the divine; rather, it teases and prods our imaginations by inviting us to think in new and unconventional ways about big ideas and the way that they impact our lives.
So if this play is not history and it is not theology, then what is it? What should we expect as we view it? How should we take it in?
I think we begin to approach this play by remembering that a work of art that is not literal, factual or purely realistic can, nonetheless, reveal to us possibilities, beauty and provocative ideas that we might not have previously considered. Think, for example, about the paintings of the Impressionist master Monet. His paintings are far from realistic, yet in his use of blurred edges and undefined patches of color, we encounter his profound experience of the beauty of his garden. The painting is not literal but it communicates more effectively than a literal, factual photograph of the same subject would have been able to do.
In the same way, The Mountaintop invites us to consider some aspects of the life of Martin Luther King that we might not have thought of before. It introduces humor in unexpected places. The play gives us the opportunity to experience the undeniable humanity of the man, which finally only serves to magnify the spiritual greatness of the icon.
Please enjoy The Mountaintop.
Mark Abram-Copenhaver
Artistic Director, South Bend Civic Theatre
