The Mountaintop Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh 4th June 2025 Review
“The Mountaintop” by Katori Hall is at the Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh until 21 June, and this reimagining of a pivotal event in history is full of surprises, and often made me re-examine something and someone that I thought I knew a lot about.
The title of this work comes from that now famous line from Martin Luther King Jr's final speech, delivered in Memphis, Tennessee, “Take me to the mountaintop", and focuses on King’s final night on earth on April 3, 1968 in Room 306, the Lorraine Motel, Memphis.
First performed in London in 2009, “The Mountaintop” went on to win an Olivier award for Best New Play, one of many that writer Katori Hall has received in her distinguished career which has also included the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for “The Hot Wing King”. Katori Hall is a rare and insightful writer and her ability to take the final hours of a man who is now a legendary figure and strip all of the myth that has built up around him over the decades since his murder and give a portrayal of a human being is stage script writing at its best.
“The Mountaintop” is set in that single motel room and is essentially a dialogue between Martin Luther King Jr (Caleb Roberts) and motel maid Camae (Shannon Hayes) and the performance format of one act of 90 minutes, with no interval, allows for focused performances from both of them.
Keeping the performance and story space to a single room always works well for theatrical dramas, but with no hiding room or other distractions, such a space requires performers who can hold the attention of an audience from the first few moments that they step onto stage. Here both Caleb and Shannon have that ability and their performances, plus this script and tight direction from Rikki Henry make this narrative full of surprises.
For “The Mountaintop”, Katori Hall’s script has made Martin Luther King Jr a believable human being full of self-doubts and many human flaws, and Caleb Roberts, from the moment that he walks onto the stage, is a man so weary, so now fearful for his own safety (and those around him) that it is easy to just feel from him all of the many burdens that he now carries upon his shoulders. By contrast, Camae is full of energy, full of life, and Shannon Hayes’ performance here is a perfect counterbalance to Caleb’s.
This script is full of historical detail on the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and Martin Luther King’s personal life, but don’t let that put you off if you are not too familiar with any of this, as this work is strong enough to stand alone without any of this as it is also a fine study into human frailty and fears. Maybe this is why I found the early scenes of Camae as a character actually more interesting than the man who was to become a legend. Camae was new and fresh, and allowed Shannon Hayes an opportunity to make her own statement on her identity. All is not as it seems though, and Camae is hiding a secret, one which will shift dramatically the focus of this narrative entirely.
The set for this production looks minimalist, but it hides some secrets too as Hyemi Shin (set and costume), Benny Goodman (lighting designer) and Lewis Den Hertog (video designer) have created an almost surreal world for this story to play out upon and there are many small details here, such as a found toothbrush, that are as integral as spoken words to everything. Sometimes, it is actually the unspoken that has the real power in this work. A special note too has to go to Pippa Murphy (composition and sound designer). That use of a church organ and the unmistakable sounds of a Hammond organ are an integral part of this work.
“The Mountaintop” is based firmly on established historical facts, but it is also an imaginative reinterpretation of them that makes this now a very human and very personal story.
Review by Tom King © 2025
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
The title of this work comes from that now famous line from Martin Luther King Jr's final speech, delivered in Memphis, Tennessee, “Take me to the mountaintop", and focuses on King’s final night on earth on April 3, 1968 in Room 306, the Lorraine Motel, Memphis.
First performed in London in 2009, “The Mountaintop” went on to win an Olivier award for Best New Play, one of many that writer Katori Hall has received in her distinguished career which has also included the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for “The Hot Wing King”. Katori Hall is a rare and insightful writer and her ability to take the final hours of a man who is now a legendary figure and strip all of the myth that has built up around him over the decades since his murder and give a portrayal of a human being is stage script writing at its best.
“The Mountaintop” is set in that single motel room and is essentially a dialogue between Martin Luther King Jr (Caleb Roberts) and motel maid Camae (Shannon Hayes) and the performance format of one act of 90 minutes, with no interval, allows for focused performances from both of them.
Keeping the performance and story space to a single room always works well for theatrical dramas, but with no hiding room or other distractions, such a space requires performers who can hold the attention of an audience from the first few moments that they step onto stage. Here both Caleb and Shannon have that ability and their performances, plus this script and tight direction from Rikki Henry make this narrative full of surprises.
For “The Mountaintop”, Katori Hall’s script has made Martin Luther King Jr a believable human being full of self-doubts and many human flaws, and Caleb Roberts, from the moment that he walks onto the stage, is a man so weary, so now fearful for his own safety (and those around him) that it is easy to just feel from him all of the many burdens that he now carries upon his shoulders. By contrast, Camae is full of energy, full of life, and Shannon Hayes’ performance here is a perfect counterbalance to Caleb’s.
This script is full of historical detail on the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and Martin Luther King’s personal life, but don’t let that put you off if you are not too familiar with any of this, as this work is strong enough to stand alone without any of this as it is also a fine study into human frailty and fears. Maybe this is why I found the early scenes of Camae as a character actually more interesting than the man who was to become a legend. Camae was new and fresh, and allowed Shannon Hayes an opportunity to make her own statement on her identity. All is not as it seems though, and Camae is hiding a secret, one which will shift dramatically the focus of this narrative entirely.
The set for this production looks minimalist, but it hides some secrets too as Hyemi Shin (set and costume), Benny Goodman (lighting designer) and Lewis Den Hertog (video designer) have created an almost surreal world for this story to play out upon and there are many small details here, such as a found toothbrush, that are as integral as spoken words to everything. Sometimes, it is actually the unspoken that has the real power in this work. A special note too has to go to Pippa Murphy (composition and sound designer). That use of a church organ and the unmistakable sounds of a Hammond organ are an integral part of this work.
“The Mountaintop” is based firmly on established historical facts, but it is also an imaginative reinterpretation of them that makes this now a very human and very personal story.
Review by Tom King © 2025
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com