Playhouse on Park takes its audience to “The Mountaintop” and beyond in its March production

West Hartford's Playhouse on Park's March production of Katori Hall's "The Mountaintop" portrays Martin Luther King, Jr. as a more fragile than famed shaper of history . The one-act, two -character, single-setting drama, casts Torrey Linder as the formidable, yet fatigued Dr. King and Jasmine Shanise as Camae, a pretty woman of color who appears to be tending his room at the Lorriane Hotel in Memphis on the night of April 3, 1968, following his historic "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech.

The scenario at first seems simple enough: the iconic civil rights leader preparing oratory late at night for the next day's rally. Scenic designer Patti Paanyakaew plants the drama in an easily recognizable late sixties motel. The single guest room will no doubt be familiar to any baby-boomer who -- back in the day -- family vacationed in a room similarly furnished with a pair of double beds covered in patterned, tangerine-hued bedspreads, functional furniture, and a prerequisite exterior door that opened to the parking lot. The only prop missing onstage is a “Magic Fingers” box which, fed with a quarter, would vibrate the mattress.

Costume designer Vilinda McGregor clothes Camae in a crisp cleaning woman's dress and apron. She looks much fresher than her surroundings when she enters through the exterior door and, of course, recognizes MLK. They engage in light, humorous, and even flirtatious chit chat that leads to a soul-searching conversation about equality.

Suddenly, in the first surprise of greater surprises to come--- Camae leaps onto one of the beds (her mountaintop) and shouts out a politicking monologue that astounds both MLK and the audience. By then it is clear Camae is not merely a third-shift motel employ, but someone. . . something . . . more exceptional. Her true identity is best discovered sitting in a seat at the Playhouse, caught up in the energy of a production that builds to Camae's ending monologue - a sermon of sorts that reduces her first powerful speech to a whimper.

Linder portrays the iconic civic rights leader as a deeply human, somewhat flawed, and tired man, still determined to accomplish so much more via his nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience campaign against racism. A lightning and thunder storm that rages outside the motel (the work of Matthew Weisgable and Carter Mangan Jr.) startles the audience now and then. But Linder as an anxious MLK cringes each time, as if a bullet has hit him.

Those who know history know how the real world events of "The Mountaintop"end. What this surreal reimagining of that night by playwright Hall offers, under the direction of Jamil A.C. Mangan, is an affirmation that MLK's torch has passed, most recently into the hands of the theater-goers.

Regular performance of “The Mountaintop” through March6 22, 2026)
Friday at 8:00pm
Saturday at 2:00pm and 8:00pm
Sunday at 2:00pm Talk Back with the cast following matinee performances
Tuesday at 2:00pm
Wednesday at 7:30pm
Thursday at 7:30pm

Go to playhouseonpark.org/web2/Season17/mainstage_TheMountaintop.html

for more information