The human Dr. King: Katori Hall's "The Mountaintop'

Two art forms commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. this month— sculpture in Washington D. C. and theater in New York"“ couldn't present a more sharply contrasting view of this towering historical figure.

Thousands gathered in Washington on a recent Sunday as King's memorial"“ the first honoring an African-American in the Mall area"“ was dedicated in a moving ceremony, culminating in a speech by President Obama. An array of celebrities, including Dr. King's children, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder, honored the great leader of the U.S. civil rights movement who led the U.S. civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s.

The worshipful memorial site"“ a four-acre plot alongside the Tidal Basin"“ was conceived by members of Dr. King's college fraternity and approved by Congress in 1996. At its center stands the imposing monument, King's white granite figure emerging from a slab of towering stone, his arms akimbo, his stern face steadfast and determined. With Lincoln behind him, and Roosevelt to his right, King's solemn, unsmiling statue faces the Jefferson Memorial.

Seedy surroundings

In vivid contrast to the grandeur of the setting and the gargantuan, god-like statue, playwright Katori Hall's Dr. King couldn't be more down-to-earth. The same holds true for the setting of her new play, The Mountaintop"“ a seedy room in the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on the storm-swept night of April 3, 1968, the eve of Dr. King's assassination. Hall's choice of cast is equally unexpected and provocative, to say the least, consisting only of Dr. King and a young hotel chambermaid who brings him a cup of coffee.

Indeed, this downscaled version of Dr. King (in a vulnerable performance by Samuel L. Jackson) is disarming to the point of discomfort. In the play's first few moments, we hear him curse jokingly to an offstage aide whom he has sent out for cigarettes, hear him use the bathroom, see him wash his hands, watch him phone his wife and chat with his kids. He fusses and frets before the mirror as he practices his speech of the next day: "Why America is gong to hell." He coughs intermittently.

Flirtatious banter

The entrance of Carrie, the pretty chambermaid, with a tray of coffee things, provokes immediate audience anxiety, given our fresh collective memory of the recent sex scandals of Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Anthony Weiner (not to mention Bill Clinton and Elliott Spitzer). Given the reports of Dr. King's own indiscretions, the playwright's daring brings us close to alarm, as her Dr. King engages in flirtatious banter with Carrie. After insinuating a proposition, he settles for a cigarette, if she'll give him one and smoke it with him.

It quickly becomes apparent, however, that the fresh-faced Carrie, a rookie on the job (it's her first night working at the motel), is more than an even match for King. As played by Angela Bassett with tour-de-force bravado, she's bold, brash, sassy-mouthed and truthful.

"If I were you, I'd be staring at me, too," she says good-naturedly, deflecting his suggested advances without a blink. "Malcolm didn't drink, smoke, or cuss or cheat on his wife," she adds later. Twice she refers to King as a "bourgie (bourgeois) Negro," eliciting sharp laughter of surprise from the audience. Still, she's respectful, consistently calling him "Preacher King" and endlessly praising his work.

Lampooning the preacher

As the play progresses, the two ease into relaxed repartee. King offers Carrie some of his coffee; she in turn produces a flask to spike it for them both. Carrie then dons King's suit jacket and launches into a parody of his preaching.

"A new day is coming," she begins, and she ends with a farcical "Kill the white man!""“ at which point both collapse on one of the double-king-sized beds in laughter. She teases him for having "smelly feet" and holes in his socks. A pillow fight between them ensues.

As unexpected and amusing as this sequence is, it also provokes increasing anxiety. Where is Katori Hall going with this play, we wonder, as ominous rain and thunder increase outside the hotel room door while the comedy escalates within.

Ultimately, Hall's daring set-up delivers an enormous pay-off— one that would be unforgivable to reveal. Suffice it to say that it's totally unanticipated and worth all the preceding discomfort.

This startling, unconventional and inspiring play by a young African-American playwright takes us to the mountaintop (Dr. King's metaphor) of American dreams and expectations by way of an unexpected, uplifting route.

Three views of Nixon

Katori Hall's theatrical effort calls to mind the recent plays and films about Richard Nixon. How do we remember him? As a tragic figure, in Oliver Stone's epic film Nixon of 1995? As a clever, calculating, power-driven politician, in Russell Lee's Nixon's Nixon of 1995? Or as a deeply flawed, remorseful and ultimately forgivable human being, in Peter Morgan's insightful film Frost/Nixon of 2005?

"I don't want to be a martyr," says Dr. King at one point in The Mountaintop. "I'm a man, a sinner," The stern monument of Dr. King in Washington says something else altogether.

The duality of these recent images of Martin Luther King"“ figure of stone, or feet of clay"“ make it all the more meaningful to keep exploring the myth and the man in art.