Monday, February 20, 2017

The Motel Room and The Mountaintop


Memphis playwright Katori Hall outside the balcony of Room 306


The Motel Room

and

The Mountaintop

by Jamie Jobb


History knows full well what happened on the balcony outside Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel on Mulberry Street in Memphis Tennessee on April 4, 1968. During U.S. Black History Month that sad story has been retold across the nation every February for the last half century.

Drama, however, is the lone discipline fully equipped to translate and clarify what happened inside that room before Martin Luther King stepped outside to “meet his maker” at 6 p.m. that day.

“The Mountaintop”, Katori Hall’s chillingly human play about the last hours of Dr. King’s life, opened last weekend at the Martinez Campbell Theater to sparse but enthused audiences who got the dramatic treat of their lives.

Set in Room 306 with only two characters and one long act, the play closes this weekend with performances, Friday and Saturday evenings with a Sunday matinee. Tickets are available (see below). Clinton Vidal created the exquisite set with white-walled mountains inside the fateful motel room. Lighting designer Stephanie “Ann” Johnson puts those walls to great use with her strong transitions between the play’s realism and its more spiritual moments.

Anyone with a sense of urgency about American history at this “point in time” would be wise to see this telling and powerful performance, only the third production by Fairfield California’s Women of Words Productions. WOW is similar to Contra Costa’s Vagabond Players who perform in various venues but maintain no home theater. The Campbell, and resident Onstage Theatre, are to be congratulated for hosting such a fine offering of quality theater in downtown Martinez.

* * *

I chose “meet his maker” above to describe that horrid historic event because the phrase suits the deep ironies underpinning the surreal world playwright Hall creates inside Room 306.

At rise, Dr. King (Dedrick Weathersby) is working on a speech. Camae “The Maid” (Doris R. Bumpus) enters with a newspaper, coffee and “room service”. Before they leave the room to meet fate on the balcony, the pair experience the spiritual power of thunder, lightning, deep southern snow and a phone call direct to The Lord Herself In Heaven.

(ASIDE: the casual reference to “cell phone” at the end of the play belies the fact that Hall published it in 2013.)

Terrence Ivory directs this delicately incisive production with reverence and good humor. But his cast is such a fine-tuned pair that Ivory has the sense to let each of them pull much of their performance from sheer instinct. Clearly Weathersby’s considerable physical talents are countered with the elegant moves of Bumpus’ ornery maid, who’s obviously an angel in disguise. These are seasoned players who know how to bring “action” to a role.

The spiritual underpinnings of this work are clear and necessary for the Legacy of King. But as told here, Weathersby does not depict The Reverend Doctor as a Holy Man. He smokes, he drinks, he argues, he cries, he flirts … flying around the room like Gene Kelly. Weathersby is an obvious musical comedy veteran. But he also handles the difficult text with élan … neither actor leaves the room until the end.

However, when Bumpus steps into Dr. King’s shoes for Camae’s monologue halfway through the play, all hell breaks loose in Room 306. The Campbell has staged lots of powerful performances, however Doris Bumpus’ moment here is worthy of top billing. A gospel vocalist who took her first solo in church at age five, Doris certainly belts the speech with such fierce intensity that my own bones rattled all the way home.

I’m not sure where the roof of the theater landed.

* * *

Women of Words:

More information on this phenomenal and largely unknown American play:




http://archive.commercialappeal.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/playwright-katori-hall-returning-to-memphis-to-make-her-first-film-arkabutla-ep-1243587531-324099991.html

photo by Memphis Commercial Appeal

Here is Samuel L. Jackson's short comment on his role as Dr. King in the Broadway production directed by Kenny Leon and also starring Angela Bassett:
(1:32)

2 comments:

  1. Thank you, Mr Jobb.
    There's only one thing to do after reading a review as compelling as this. Well two things in my case: I also got a ticket for my wife.

    ReplyDelete