THE MOUNTAINTOP

Royal Lyceum Theatre

★★★★

“a powerful play with a satisfying, if unrealistic, ending”

Katori Hall’s award winning play The Mountaintop is a timely revival at Edinburgh’s Lyceum Theatre, as the United States once again faces, in King’s words, “the urgency of the moment.” Directed by Rikki Henry, with Caleb Roberts as Dr Martin Luther King Jr., and Shannon Hayes as Camae, this production delivers a theatrical examination of King’s last night alive in the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee on April 3rd, 1968. If you’re thinking this will be a naturalistic drama about a charismatic civil rights leader and the forthright maid he encounters when he orders room service, prepare to be surprised.

We encounter Dr King on a night when he is at his physical lowest. He is coughing incessantly, smoking cigarettes that only make things worse, and is increasingly paranoid (with good reason) about the covert surveillance of the FBI on his political activities. Paradoxically, his achievements as a civil rights leader have never been greater. He is a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. He has already delivered his most iconic speeches, and is in Memphis having delivered yet another historic speech in support of striking sanitation workers. It is in reference to this speech that playwright Katori Hall takes her title The Mountaintop.

The beginning of the drama is naturalistic enough. We see Dr King go through the motions of anyone who finds himself in a motel room, after midnight, with an exhausting work day behind him. Hall presents us with Martin Luther King, Jr. the man, not the legend. A man trying to find a cigarette, and to reach his wife and children with a telephone call. Outside the Lorraine Motel a typical Southern thunderstorm is battering Memphis, to King’s evident discomfort, and even fear. Hall has chosen to present King as vulnerable, afraid, and desperately in need of that cigarette, and a cup of coffee. Salvation arrives in the form of Camae, a pretty and beguilingly outspoken young woman who rescues King with both. From that point on, The Mountaintop is really Camae’s play, as she alternatively flirts, shocks, comforts and drives King into the arms of his eventual destiny. The play parts company with naturalism when, in a totally unexpected jog into surrealism, it transpires that Camae is not just a maid with room service, but an angel of death, preparing King for what awaits him the following day.

In this production, set designer Hyemi Shin has prepared the way for the surrealistic jog. The set is set at an angle, with the boundaries of the room sketched in. There’s something surrealistic about the television set as well—as though it were broadcasting images not of this world. Actors Shannon Hayes and Caleb Roberts have plenty of space to burst through the boundaries of the motel room when the moment arrives, and director Rikki Henry encourages them to be bold in their use of it. The show may begin in a motel room in Memphis, but it ends at an apocalyptic moment in American history, and Hyemi Shin’s costume designs are up to the challenge as well. With powerful composition and sound design by Pippa Murphy, and lighting design by Benny Goodman, we are free to focus on the performances by Hayes and Roberts. Shannon Hayes makes the most of the role of Camae. She is strong, confident and not afraid to challenge Roberts at every turn in the drama. This is essential since though there are surprises throughout the drama, there’s not much that could be called suspenseful. Caleb Roberts is a good foil as Martin Luther King, Jr. He shows the range of the man, with a sensitive performance that includes weaknesses for tobacco and women, and King’s fear of meeting a violent fate before his work in the Civil Rights Movement is complete. While the dramaturgy is uneven at times, it is still a powerful play with a satisfying, if unrealistic, ending.

The Lyceum’s revival is well worth attending. Spend a little time reminding yourself of the history of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States in the 1960s, and the life and writing of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. before you go. It will make your visit all the more meaningful. Recommended.

THE MOUNTAINTOP

Royal Lyceum Theatre

Reviewed on 4th June 2025

by Dominica Plummer

Photography by Mihaela Bodlovic

Previously reviewed at this venue:

TREASURE ISLAND | ★★★ | November 2024

THE MOUNTAINTOP

★★★★

“a moving, funny and exhilarating play”

Bristling with excellent performances from an outstanding ensemble class, The Lonely Londoners is a powerful tale of migration, adaptation and the struggles of getting by in a cold and unwelcoming city. Director Ebenezer Bamgboye brings Roy Williams’ critically acclaimed stage adaptation of Sam Selvon’s seminal novel on the Windrush Generation to the Kiln Theatre for a second run with the original cast, following a successful debut last year at the Jermyn Street Theatre.

Central to the novel is its oral quality. Foregrounding the intricacies and rhythms of Caribbean English, the characters tell their stories of love and flirtation, experiences of racism, employment difficulties, and battles with the cold, and capturing this style and energy presents challenge to any adaptor, and the play meets this challenge successfully. The sparse stage setting (work of Laura Ann Price), consisting of six packing boxes – one for each character, centres the narratives told by the characters. Much of the action unfolds in the flat of lead character Moses (played brilliantly by Solomon Israel), a longstanding migrant from Trinidad living in London, who helps new arrivals and others find their feet. Within his house, his friends and acquaintances bum cigarettes and share stories, the minimalist staging focusing attention onto the language and storytelling of its characters.

This is reinforced by the innovative lighting design by Elliot Griggs, with a backdrop of lighted squares that change colour, brighten and darken, and flash in intense strobe-like patterns, echoing the narrative and this is supported by modern musical choices. Complementing the experimental lighting are sung sections performed with ethereal beauty by Aimée Powell – in the role of Moses’ partner in Trinidad – and interpretive dance sections which convey those emotions that the men struggle to easily express through speech. This expressionistic layer adds further depth to play.

All the performers are fantastic. Romario Simpson excels in the role of Galahad, a loud-talking new arrival determined to make London his. Gilbert Kyem Jnr shines as Big City, a physically imposing ‘hustler’ who struggles to remember places names, to great comedic effect. Shannon Hayes and Carol Moses are alternately moving and hilarious as mother- (Tanty) and daughter-in-law (Agnes), brought over to London on the back of stories of success from their son and husband, Lewis, played by Tobi Bakare. In placing Tanty and Agnes’ stories at the centre of the play, the new adaptation inserts female experience into a narrative which, in its original telling, was very masculine dominated.

Tobi Bakare’s performance deserves special mention, as Lewis provides an insight into the questions that are the heart of the play. We see his struggles most clearly as he battles against unemployment in a patriarchal society that places a man’s work as his purpose, racism in a country that told him it was his Motherland, his own misogynistic double standards that cause him to become jealous of his wife and finally alcohol, which he turns to quiet the inside of his head. Through all these profound emotional changes, Bakare is compelling to watch, especially in his struggle to write down his feelings when prompted by Moses.

The Lonely Londoners is a moving, funny and exhilarating play, and the difficulties and successes of its characters are a captivating narrative. Its final note is a love letter to London, a city that is as tough, beautiful, worn down and resilient as the characters themselves.

Tag Archives: Shannon Hayes

THE MOUNTAINTOP

★★★★

Royal Lyceum Theatre

THE MOUNTAINTOP

Royal Lyceum Theatre

★★★★

“a powerful play with a satisfying, if unrealistic, ending”