Powerful, insightful and wickedly funny, Katori Hall’s Olivier Award-winning play Mountaintop remains ‘forever present and urgent’ for director Roy Alexander Weise. T
his new production with Ntombizodwa Ndlovu as Camae and ’Tomiwa Edun as Dr. King will be his first for the Royal Exchange and as Joint Artistic Director.
Hall’s deceptively simple premise – two people in a motel room – reveals far more than at first appears. Race and class, gender and politics, leadership and responsibility are placed unapologetically under her sharply focused lens; flaws are unflinchingly exposed, intimacies laid bare, and narratives are reclaimed. In 2021, as we wrestle with so much uncertainty, this stunning play is perhaps more revelatory than ever before. The Mountaintop runs from 25 September – 27 October.
It’s 3 April 1968; the height of America’s Civil Rights Movement. In Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel, Memphis, Tennessee, after giving what was his final galvanising speech, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr is forced to confront himself as his hopes and dreams are picked apart by Camae, a young, attractive, foul-mouthed maid who brings him a cup of coffee, with a dollop of whiskey in it, on a tray of unflinching honesty.
Listings
The Mountaintop – Listings Information
A Royal Exchange Theatre production
THE MONTAINTOP
Written by Katori Hall
Directed by Roy Alexander Weise
25 Sep – 27 Oct
