Run to the Mountaintop (Khisten Echols)
I’m new to the idea of Broadway but not to live theatre. I remember going to the Hatiloo, a small Black repertoire theatre in Memphis, to see For Colored Girls, A Streetcar Named Desire, and a host of others while growing up but I experienced Broadway for the first time during an Honors trip my freshman year of college. Since then, I have longed to go see more plays but I just couldn’t find the time or funds for such an excursion. Amidst my 16 hour course load and the seemingly never ending process of applying to graduate programs, I felt that a trip to Broadway was in order. I began to search and saw that The Mountaintop was opening the same weekend that I was presenting my most recent research project at a McNair Conference. I had to go see this production!! After making a sarcastic Facebook post on Dr. J’s wall, my wish was granted, in a matter of hours might I add. My fairy Godmother is clearly better than Cinderella’s! I was so grateful for this gift and I began to anticipate my upcoming trip.
So, the night of the play has arrived and I am rushing from Jersey trying to make it to the theatre. As I am walking, I walk right into the Occupy Wall Street protest in Times Square. Now I am hustling through a large chanting chorus of protestors thinking, “Wow! I am right here in the middle of the protest!” I check my watch; it is 7:30 and I think I will never make it through this crowd. Finally, I make it through the crowd and to the theatre with a few minutes to spare. After making my souvenir purchases, the usher showed me to my seat. As I made my way down the aisle, I took my seat on the second row, three seats down from Tina Knowles! I told ya’ll my fairy Godmother was the bomb! The house is filling up quickly. As I look at the stage, an image of the Lorraine Motel is projected. I begin to reflect back on the last time that I visited this historic site. It was in 8th grade. I was doing research on my first research project titled, I AM A MAN: A Grassroots Encounter with Institutionalized Racism. I remember my interviews with the late Reverend Benjamin L. Hooks, viewing the photographs of Mr. Earnest Withers, and spending hours at the museum to gain inspiration for this project. At that moment, in Jacob’s Theatre, that project meant more to me than it ever had before. The play commenced, I was excited as I literally sat on the edge of my seat. (I am not going to reveal the plot of the play because you should go see it!!)
When Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett take the stage, a presence like no other is presented. The dialectal matching throughout the play is superb as the two actors take you on a journey through reality and superstition. This dramatization of this pivotal event for Black history, American history, and the Civil Rights Movement was one that I will never forget. I left the theatre with so much excitement and couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel to tell everyone I knew about my experience. The next morning I woke to watch the dedication of the King monument. This made the weekend complete and put the play’s Broadway opening into perspective for me. As the play opens, King enters room 306 at the Lorraine Motel during a thunderstorm and yells to his friend Ralph Abernathy to bring him some Pall Malls. I wasn’t shocked but the man in front of me seemed to be appalled at the thought of King wanting a pack of cigarettes. I guess he forgot that King was 39 at the time, was away from his family, and leading a major movement for masses of African-Americans and Americans, I digress.
King begins to describe his next speech that he will call, “America is Going to Hell” and he goes to use the bathroom mid thought. My mind instantly went to Pulp Fiction and I was so ready for something unexpected to happen. (If you didn’t catch that, go watch the movie!) Nothing amazing happened but the story continues and King continues to allude to his speech, orders coffee from room service, and makes a phone call to his wife and kids at home. Shortly after getting no answer, room service has arrived and we are introduced to Camae. The two begin to flirt and we learn more about Camae and King’s character is brought to life. I’m sure the man in front of me was outdone when Camae slipped some liquor in King’s coffee. At this point Dr. King is a 39 year old cigarette smoking, Whiskey sipping, womanizer…sounds pretty normal to me. But then again, what is normal? He was just a man, a dynamic man but a man nevertheless. Ok, ok, back to the play. So, the exchange goes on for a few beats and culminates when Camae gives her take on how King should deliver a speech for the people. She argues that King must think “po’ folk can’t talk, you must think we dumb…you don’t have to talk for us.” She then delivers a power speech in vernacular and just as she references King as Micheal, the plot starts to shift. Because this was his birth name (ya’ll knew that, right?), he began to be paranoid and believes that Camae is an informant or someone sent to kill him.
….SPOILER ALERT….
The man in front of me is really looking like what the heck is going on because now we learn that Camae is an angel and her first assignment from God, who is a Black woman, is Dr. King. By now I am on the corner of my seat, I’m glad I had an aisle seat. At this point, I have given up on figuring out what’s going to happen next. In the next 35 minutes or so the plot begins to wrap up. King pleads with Camae to call God on the hotel’s rotary telephone. God has a cell phone! Finally, she folds and King begs God to just give him more time because he had so much work to do. Of course God says no! Camae tries to reassure King telling him, “There will be another you, you’re a once in a lifetime affair.” Like many other times during the play, this moment is broken with comedy as King asks who is going to finish all that he has to do, Jessie Jackson? Ok, that was really funny to me! Maybe this one is funnier, “when you get to heaven, you’ll see Malcolm X…he didn’t cheat on his wife, drink liquor, or smoke cigarettes!”
Now, my favorite part of the play comes! There are two powerful monologues delivered at the end of the play. (One of which I am determined to learn.) They make references to great African-Americans, influential events, and they deliver the message that “the baton passes on!” Thusly charging the audience and the world to pick up the baton and make a change. The play closes as Dr. King and Camae kiss.
I definitely knew they were going to kiss! I had to say that, lol. Now, go see the play or at least be inspired by the thought that there were men and women just like you and I who did amazing things so that they could pass the baton on to others. So, pick up the baton and run to The Mountaintop.
Peace.
