‘The Mountaintop’ – Written by Katori Hall. Directed by Maurice Emmanuel Parent. Scenic Design by Ben Lieberman. Lighting Design by Brian Lilienthal. Sound Design by Joshua Jackson. Presented by the Front Porch Arts Collective at the Suffolk University Modern Theatre, 525 Tremont Street, Boston, through October 12, 2025
A powerful production of the play The Mountaintop is running at Suffolk’s Modern Theatre – a short Green Line ride away from the university (BU) where MLK earned a PhD in systematic theology in 1955, on the same campus where he delivered a speech entitled “The Future of Desegregation” at the Ford Hall Forum in 1963, and blocks away from the Boston Common, where he delivered a speech in 1965 and where a permanent monument honoring the life and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King was unveiled in 2023.
Titled “The Embrace,” the memorial was inspired by a photograph of Martin and Coretta Scott King embracing after he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. The Mountaintop by Olivier Award-winner Katori Hall is also a two-hander, but Dr. King and his wife are not the play’s characters. Set in the Lorraine Motel in Tennessee in April 1968, The Mountaintop tells the story of an imaginary meeting between a chambermaid named Carmae and the guest she refers to as ‘Preacher King’ on his last night on earth. It is a rainy night, and King calls the front desk to order food/room service so he can stay up working on a speech. Carmae enters soon thereafter, bringing coffee, conversation, companionship, sharing her cigarettes (Pall Malls), and more. Coretta is part of one of the play’s early moments – on the other end of the phone when Martin’s talking to her, unaware that Carmae is (at Martin’s request) sitting in a chair in his room.
Entering the intimate Modern Theatre, we are immediately transported to the intimate room 306 of the Memphis motel, its finishes and furnishings capturing its mid-century vibe, with a pair of double beds and rust-colored curtains framing a large window that reveals the relentlessly heavy rainfall outside. The picture-perfect scenic design is by Ben Lieberman.
Running 110 minutes with no intermission, The Mountaintop is an emotional roller-coaster (and educational experience about King’s important place in American history) for the audience and a feat of intense focus, incredible stamina and top-notch performances by the actors. The dialogue (and body language) between the two characters toggles between tentative and tenacious, flirtatious and serious, chatty/one-liners and eloquent extemporaneous speeches/monologues.
The play reveals King’s heroic (a brilliant orator, revered and compassionate reverend, the leader of social justice movements) and human (fears, insecurities, smelly feet, a hole in his sock, eye for the ladies, and infidelity) sides – at one point, he pleads to be understood as “just a man.”
Whereas the rainfall and occasional snowflakes provide a calming effect, rumbles of thunder and flashes of lightning and lighting effects (masterfully created by lighting designer Brian Lilienthal and sound designer Joshua Jackson) provide loud jolts that add to the show’s intensity (and startled this audience member), but more importantly revealed our hero’s sleep-deprived and anxious state (he jumped at each thunderclap and once slumps to the ground and searches the room furiously for wiretaps) – perhaps representing his fears/foreshadowing the gunshots that are forthcoming.
Martin Luther King, Jr. and Carmae are portrayed with power and poignancy by Dominic Carter and Kiera Prusmack. Throughout the course of the play, they bring Hall’s words to life with varying degrees of intensity and subtlety, but consistent intentionality. From a short scene early on in the play when they look at each other with knowing glances and share how they each like their “coffee” (him: lighter with cream and sugar, her: darker – alluding to their respective skin tones), to a spontaneous speech by Carmae when she dons his suit jacket, jumps onto one of beds and spews rhetoric with the passion of a preacher (albeit one with different philosophies and a fouler-mouth than Rev. Dr. King), to King’s final of many monologues are pitch-perfect.
There are some inconsistencies in the script, but the performances keep the audience engaged. The final scene – an immersive multimedia montage of individuals who respond to King’s question: “Will there be others after me? To carry the baton” is beautifully executed but falls a little short for me because the play ends with images of President Obama in 2008, a time (and presidential administration) when I felt more hopeful and optimistic.
Carter has played the role of Dr. King before (Lexington Players, Chenango River Theatre). Performing in Boston, a few years older and potentially closer in age to MLK (who was 39 at the time), and with Prusmack as scene partner, this production absolutely soars. Kudos to Team Mountaintop and to Director Maurice Emmanuel Parent (producing artistic director of Front Porch) for helming this production. I missed Parent’s portrayal of Dr. King in the 2013 production of The Mountaintop at Cambridge’s Central Square Theatre, but in serving as teacher/professor/mentor for so many years to so many in the Boston/Greater Boston/New England communities – and now in directing Carter and Prusmack in The Mountaintop for Boston audiences to appreciate, is more than doing his part to both pass and carry on the baton with ease and grace.
For more information and tickets, go to: https://www.frontporcharts.org/the-mountaintop.html
