New, vulnerable portrayal of MLK to receive spotlight in Hall's 'The Mountaintop'
Grace Prosniewski
Daily Arts WriterApril 23rd, 2013
Few figures in history have inspired like Martin Luther King Jr. With all of his accomplishments, it’s easy to think of the man as mythic, a hero from a story. But King had strengths, weaknesses and daily struggles like anyone else. Making its Michigan debut, Katori Hall’s play, “The Mountaintop,” hopes to show the man behind the icon.
The production, directed by Carla Milarch, focuses on the interactions between Dr. King (played by Brian Marable) and a mysterious and feisty hotel maid, Camae (Carollette Phillips), the night before his assassination.
“The life of Martin Luther King Jr. is very sacrosanct as an American martyr and icon and somebody who meant so much to so many,” Milarch said. “His life is often dealt with or portrayed in deservedly reverent tones. The playwright approaches the portrayal of Martin Luther King Jr. in kind of a new way.
“Putting his struggle and his life into the context of who he was as a human being … brings a new weight, a new perspective to it — that somebody who was a flesh-and-blood human was able to live the life he led.”
Hall’s new perspective intrigued and encouraged the actors, and it allowed them to relate more to the characters.
“The way that this script is written, there’s so many attributes that you see in this guy as far as him just being a real person, and not this person who seems beyond human,” Marable said.
The writing of the play keeps the audience engaged and questioning.
“(Hall) is a great storyteller, and there’s a pretty big twist at the end that is led up to. The writing is very taut,” Milarch said. “It sort of keeps you right there with the story.”
“It’s got almost a thriller kind of aspect to it, as these two characters start to develop this relationship,” Milarch said. “It’s very compelling to watch the little twists and turns of their relationship as they figure each other out and as Camae’s real objective is revealed over the course of the play.”
The writing also includes some humor, as the characters feel one another out.
“It’s very funny,” Milarch said. “The repartee these two characters have is really a lot of fun. They verbally spar with each other.”
Hall’s work is fictitious but based on historical facts, a combination that Phillips finds exciting as an actress.
“Brian has to be Dr. King, but it’s a side of Dr. King being created in the text,” Phillips said. “I think as an actor, you can always find a lot about your character just by paying attention to what’s going on in the text, and how your character interacts with the other people.”
“I think it makes it fun,” she continued. “And it does leave room for your own creativity and your own interpretation of what’s happening in the script. You can let your imagination run.”
The period setting also imbues the play with a sense of historical significance.
“It’s such a crucial time in his life,” Marable said. “We can go back and look at so many different dates and speeches and big things in Dr. King’s life. This play is set the night before he dies, after he just delivered probably one of his most powerful speeches, on a day when he was probably most overwhelmed and exhausted.”
The work touches not only on Dr. King’s struggles, but on his beliefs as well.
“I believe the play is about faith: how you have faith, how you lose faith and how you keep faith,” Milarch said. “We all know the ending of the story, it’s true. But it’s not about the destination; it’s about how we’re getting there and things we discover along the way.”
Printed from www.michigandaily.com on Tue, 28 May 2013 05:53:28 -0400