In Katori Hall's play The Mountaintop, taking place on the fateful night that Martin Luther King was assassinated, a maid named Camae, delivering room service says, “Let me take you to the mountaintop.” And every way you can imagine to take that statement, a play off the speech the iconic Dr. King gave that afternoon, works.

The mountaintop may be the ultimate pulpit, the highest high from which to speak, the source of divine wisdom, or it may just be a sexual plateau, the lay result of a man and a woman cooped up in a Memphis motel room on a stormy night. He was a Man, of course.

We know because he pees in the bathroom, chain smokes Pall Malls, and takes a nip out of Camae's flask. Samuel L. Jackson is persuasive in this role, trying to write a speech about what's wrong with America. His words are elegant, measured. But Camae (a mega octane Angela Bassett), is foul-mouthed and flirtatious, and answers to a god she calls she. That god, reached by phone, hangs up on Dr. King. We know who's boss in this tight, 90 minute chamber piece ably directed by Kenny Leon, even after an explosive moment when Camae breaks into a rap recitation, a riff on American history. And Martin Luther King completes his speech. The last ten minutes take your breath away.

On opening night, Harry Belafonte, Alicia Keys, Mary Alice, Dick Cavett, Al Roker, David Dinkins, Debbie Allen, Spike Lee, Ben Vereen, Anthony Mackie, and Lily Rabe were just some of the luminaries in the rapt audience. At the after party at Espace, Phylicia Rashad opined that last knockout speech by Camae would be any actress' dream.

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura