The Mountaintop – MTC

Overview

It’s been 50 years since “I have a dream”, but Martin Luther King Jr’s legacy lives on in the Australian premiere of The Mountaintop. Katori Hall’s award-winning play blew away London and New York, with Samuel L. Jackson making his Broadway debut.

Hall’s play is a vision of King’s last night before his assassination, set in a claustrophobic Memphis hotel room, where Camae — the bold young woman who brings his room service — forces him to confront his own fears and desires. King might be one of the most famous figures of the past century, but the work offers a rare, if imagined, insight into the private character behind his martyrdom and soaring rhetoric.

In the Melbourne Theatre Company’s production Bert La Bonte and Zarah Newman take on this taut two-hander under the direction of Alkinos Tsilimidos, best known for his work in indie Australian cinema.