‘The Mountaintop’ Offers Very Human Martin Luther King Jr.

Milwaukee Chamber Theatre’s “The Mountaintop.” Photo by Michael Brosilow.

The main reason for Milwaukee patrons to climb The Mountaintop – the current offering of the Milwaukee Chamber Theatre – is a commanding performance by Bryant Bentley as a vulnerable and then electric Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in playwright Katori Hall’s imaginative invention of his final night on earth in 1968.

This Dr. King is addicted to Pall Mall cigarettes, suspicious that the FBI has planted bugs in his phone and overly eager to jest and lecherously flirt with the motel maid that brings him coffee. Playwright Hall takes a sudden turn into expressionism and the surreal — and that allows Bentley to move King from all too human, randy, panicked and desperate to inflaming his followers with rousing insights and flowing sermons. Hall has landed many dramatic prizes since writing this play 15 years ago, but productions have to work hard to knit her style changes together.

Bentley, who has been seen by Milwaukee audiences before at Next Act Theatre and the Rep, is not a physical duplicate of King. His voice is higher and his behavior less guarded by the rawness of events. But Bentley’s acting insights in little moments make us feel King’s dilemma and frailty and then his vocal power startles us into remembrance of how the actual King could stir us. Director Dimonte Henning, an actor himself, may struggle with some other balances in the play, but he well understands the pace and quiet steps Bentley the actor needs.

The play starts out so naturalistic in the interplay between King and the motel maid (though there is a hint of hidden depths to her presence) that it would be unfair for a reviewer to give away too many of the ways the play moves into other dimensions – beyond noting that how white playwrights regarded the black vision of heaven in the 1930s is getting a sardonic revision here.

It is also worth mentioning that the standard motel room with falling rain outside the window may seem static and bland, but scenic designer Joy Ahn has some surprises in store.

But I should state bluntly that any two-hander play (the term for a production with only two actors) has problems if one actor is much better than the other. That is mostly the case here, though not entirely fair in the last segment of the play, when N’Jameh Russell-Camara adds an ethereal edge to the character of the maid, coming alive with a vocal power and cadence that is quite moving. Earlier on, though, the sass and flippancy seem more stage directions and the southern dialect feels imposed.

With a sudden outburst of special effects and quick newsreel glimpses of King’s murder and the parade of those who carried the baton forward after him (from Jesse Jackson to Barack Obama), the play seeks to end on an upnote that one actor has earned and the life of King certainly merits.

The Mountaintop runs through March 24 on the Studio Stage of the Broadway Theatre Center. For tickets visit https://www.milwaukeechambertheatre.org/tickets or call 414-291-7800.

Dominique Paul Noth served for decades as film and drama critic, later senior editor for features at the Milwaukee Journal. You’ll find his blog here and here.