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:
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)
