Adaeze Nwoko as Camae and Will Bryson as Dr. Martin Luther King rehearse a scene from ‘The Mountaintop,’ which continues through Feb. 6 at the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble’s Alvina Krause Theatre.
Bob Rush Photography
BTE’s ‘The Mountaintop’ portrays King’s final hours
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In this scene from ‘The Mountaintop,’ Adaeze Nwoko as hotel maid Camae has slipped on Dr. Martin Luther King’s jacket and is showing the civil rights leader, portrayed by Will Bryson, the kind of fiery speech she would deliver if she were him.
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
Stage manager A’nie Kirchner created a newspaper to use as a 1960s-era prop in Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble’s production of ‘The Mountaintop.’
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
Kirchner found online a suitcase similar to the one Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had in his hotel room the night before he died, then lined it with red, put a monogram on it and filled it with clothing and other items similar to what King had in his.
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
By good fortune a person associated with BTE had a table very similar to the one in the Rev. Martin Luther King’s hotel room the night before his death. Other props include a well-thumbed Bible, vintage ash trays and a mongrammed wallet similar to King’s.
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
Feathers fly during a pillow fight between Camae the motel maid and civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in one of the more light-hearted moments of the play.
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
King’s “I have a dream” speech was printed for the play in a computer font that replicates his own handwriting.
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
During the evening before Dr. Martin Luther King is killed, he and motel maid share moments of fear, sadness and anger — but their relationship also includes a kind of playfulness.
Bob Rush Photography
So, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. asks the maid, what would you do, if you were me?
Delighted that he cares about her opinion, Camae scoots across a motel room to grab the jacket King has removed, and pulls it over her yellow maid uniform.
Then she slips her stocking feet into the shoes he’s taken off and launches into the kind of strongly worded speech she’d like to give a larger audience.
That’s just one of many fascinating scenes in Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble’s presentation of “The Mountaintop,” which continues tonight through Feb. 6 at the Alvina Krause Theatre.
The award-winning play, written by Katori Hall, is set in Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, a city King visited in 1968 to help striking sanitation workers.
BTE guest actors Will Bryson and Adaeze Nwoko portray an imagined conversation between the civil rights leader and the motel maid on the evening of April 3, the day before King will be killed by an assassin’s bullet on the motel balcony.
As the play progresses, the somewhat mystical Camae informs King about his destiny.
“Her message is not that ‘you’re in the place you’re going to die,’ but that ‘you will die,’ ” Nwoko said before a recent dress rehearsal, explaining King wouldn’t have been able to change his fate by, say, leaving Memphis before dawn.
Anger, fear, trying to bargain with God — it’s all part of a show that stage manager A’nie Kirchner describes as “staggering, beautiful, heartbreaking.”
The playwright depicts King as a man with flaws, from cigarette smoking to extramarital flirtations to the occasional sexist comment — after all, Camae’s oratorical skills are very good, he says, “for a woman.”
But playwright Hall also depicts King as a tender father and a courageous leader, making decisions from a place of love.
“Love was at the center of his being, even after going to jail, getting dogs sicced on him,” said Bryson, who portrays King. “For me to perform well, I have to have love at the center of my being.”
“What I love about the play is, it digs deep,” Bryson said. “And love; if there’s a problem, that, I believe, will solve it.”
Both actors said they hope the play will inspire audience members to carry forward King’s legacy of working toward equality and justice for everyone.
“We’re not at the mountaintop yet,” Nwoko said. “We still have a way to go.”
“Why are we still fighting?” Bryson asked rhetorically. “Caring about our crayons? Our pigment?”
“If I can play a little part in unraveling that tight rope, this role becomes missionary work. It becomes activism.”
While the play has many somber moments, there’s also a dose of levity. One of Nwoko’s favorite scenes, she admitted, involves a pillow fight between Camae and King.
That little tussle takes place on a set where stage manager A’nie Kirchner and production manager Michael Yerges have worked hard to re-create the look of the actual Room 306, from a carpet “the color of bile” on the floor to floral pictures on the wall to furniture built in the style of the 1960s.
Yerges found two old ash trays at a yard sale; Kirchner found a well-thumbed Bible online and also arranged to have an old-fashioned motel key chain printed with the correct room number.
The room is stocked with an old-time telephone, complete with a rotary dial, and a vintage “Green Book,” which contained a list of places where Black people were welcome to stay.
Using newsprint donated by the Bloomsburg Press-Enterprise, Kirchner created what looks like a 1960s-era newspaper. And, using a font developed by historians who examined King’s letters, she created what look like hand-written copies of his speeches.
“We get really specific about props,” she said, nodding toward the two actors as they arrived. “If these two can live in a real world, that does it for me.”
There was even one aspect to the prop gathering that Kirchner described as spooky; it involved an old suitcase she had ordered online.
“When I opened it up, this was inside,” she said, reaching somewhere beneath the clothes and alongside the hairbrush to pull out a small bullet that, oddly enough, had been in the suitcase when it arrived.
Spookiness aside, guest director Casaundra Freeman said she is especially happy that day-time shows have been planned for high school students to attend on Feb. 1 and Feb. 2.
Young people might think of Dr. King as someone very old, she said, but the play modernizes him in a way and makes him more relatable.
For people of all ages, she said, “Just come — or live stream it. We’re getting the details worked out.”
Performances begin at 7:30 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays with Sunday matinees at 3 p.m., through Feb. 6. The 3 p.m. Jan. 30 show includes a post-performance conversation with the cast. Tickets may be purchased at the BTE box office, 570-784-8181 or at bte.org. Covid protocols are in place at the theater.
Special “Pay What You Decide” performances will be held Jan. 21 and Jan. 22. You may reserve your seat for free and choose your own price after the show.
School matinees for high school students will be 10 a.m. Feb. 1 and Feb. 2. For booking, contact Paula Henry at 570-458-4075 or [email protected].