“The Mountaintop” takes you back to April 3, 1968.
“The last night of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life,” says Brett Ashley Robinson, Director of “The Mountaintop” at the Arden Theatre Company.
Actor Akeem Davis plays the legendary leader who’s just given his famous, and final, speech in Memphis.
“He’s there to support the sanitation workers’ strike,” says Davis. “We meet Dr. King in a moment after a long day where he feels very unsuccessful in his movement.”
“He’s feeling pretty defeated,” says Robinson.
The story is set in a room at the Lorraine Motel.
“I play Camae. She’s a room service worker,” says actor Kishia Nixon. “She is the person that he can kind of confide in.”
Dr. King tells her that night that Memphis is “just the beginning.”
“But she is this divine being that has been sent to do a certain job,” says Nixon.
“She also is someone here who is there to guide him through these last particular moments,” says Robinson.
The show is an imagining of Dr. King’s emotional journey.
“Things are more complicated in this moment than he thought they would be,” says Davis.
“She’s there to not see him as kind of the image we see, as like this American icon,” says Robinson.
Instead, she says Camae sees Dr. King as “just a man.”
“It’s like a comfortable space for him that she’s holding,” says Nixon.
“And a really vulnerable look at where he is in this particular moment right before his passing,” says Robinson. “She is pretty magical.”
Dynamic visual effects transform the room and Dr. King’s world.
“Shift him from kind of the mortal plane to the divine plane,” she says. “It’s really a story kind of about care and unfinished business.”
“Anyone, anywhere, can pick up the baton,” says Davis. “You don’t have to be Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to say I want to make a change, a positive change in the world.”
“The Mountaintop” runs through December 14 at the Arden Theatre Company.
For more information:
“The Mountaintop”
Link to Tickets at Arden Theatre Company
Arden Theatre Company
40 N. 2nd Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106