Palm Beach Dramaworks Finds the Man Behind the Martyr in ‘The Mountaintop’

 

Katori Hall’s ‘The Mountaintop’ begins not with history’s public moment but with its imagined private foremath—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. alone in Room 306 at the Lorraine Motel on the night before his assassination. Earlier that evening, he had delivered the now-prophetic “Mountaintop” speech at Mason Temple, speaking of a promised land he might never reach.

 

Hall has said the play was inspired by a story from her mother, Carrie Mae, who as a teenager longed to hear King that night but, at her own mother’s urging, stayed home “It would be the greatest regret of my mother’s life,” Hall recalled, adding that the fear and foreboding surrounding King’s final days became part of her “bloody heritage.”

 

From that personal history came a work that mingles the spiritual and the intimate. In Hall’s imagining, King’s solitude is interrupted by a motel maid named Camae—named for her mother—who compels him to confront his life and legacy, “warts and all.” He is no longer just an icon, but a man of humor, fear, and doubt, a human being vulnerable like the rest of us.

 

Hall infuses the play with passion and magical realism. Director Belinda (Be) Boyd makes the magical element feel organic, suspending disbelief as Camae’s true identity—as an angel guiding King toward another promised land—slowly emerges. When rose petals fall from heaven confirming her purpose, the effect is otherworldly yet utterly convincing in the hands of Boyd and her gifted creative team.

 

Palm Beach Dramaworks’ production stars Christopher Marquis Lindsay (in his PBD debut) as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rita Cole as Camae. Their chemistry commands the stage; both give performances that are inspired and deeply moving.

 

Lindsay’s portrayal captures a man on edge—pacing, restless, as much fixated on his missing Pall Mall cigarettes as he is tormented by the refrain, “America’s going to hell.” From the opening muttered parody of “My Country, ’Tis of Thee' (“My country who doles out constant misery”) to his vision of a multicultural America “banding together to shame this country,” Lindsay channels King’s anguish over what is—and his faith in what could be. His performance moves through the stages of grief until, bargaining exhausted, he accepts his fate with grace. The actor disappears into the man.

 

Cole nearly steals the show as Camae, the “new maid” who seems to know far too much. She listens lovingly as King speaks to his family on the phone, her eyes betraying both empathy and knowledge. Her line, “Nonsense comin’ out of a pretty woman’s mouth ain’t nonsense at all—it’s poetry,” feels like a credo for her performance.

 

She’s electrifying as she playfully dons King’s jacket, climbs on the bed, and delivers the militant speech she imagines he might give, King acknowledging “Maybe the voice of violence is the only voice white folks will listen to.… They hate so easily and we love too much.” What begins as a humorous oratory reveals a painful truth.

 

As Camae transforms from maid to angel, Cole’s intensity deepens. When King asks whether the future is “as beautiful as you,” her rueful and ironic “It’s as ugly as me” feels prophetic. He replies, “I wanna see it.” She warns, “It might break your heart.” That exchange leads to a stirring montage of images—courtesy of projection designer Adam J. Thompson—tracing the march of history since King’s death, much of it steeped in violence but culminating in images of our first black President.

 

Boyd directs with loving precision, orchestrating moments of laughter and tenderness amid tragedy. A pillow fight, a tickle fight—each moment of levity heightens the pathos that follows. The one-act, intermissionless play moves briskly, yet allows room for emotion and reflection. Lindsay and Cole, both consummate professionals, own the stage.

 

Nikolas Serrano’s scenic design captures the Lorraine Motel in painstaking realism—the neon sign glowing ominously through rain that turns to snow. Genny Wynn’s lighting and Roger Arnold’s sound accent the drama with lightning, thunder, and shifting tones. Brian O’Keefe’s costumes root us in 1968, right down to the holes in King’s socks.

 

If you are of a certain age, the assassinations of the 1960s remain seared in memory: John F. Kennedy in 1963, Malcolm X in 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, and two months later, Robert F. Kennedy. Those events are etched in our hearts as much as our history.

 

The hopeful ending of The Mountaintop feels hard-won—and, given today’s climate of anger and division, perhaps fragile. The violence and intolerance King sought to overcome still haunt our politics and our streets. The baton he passes in the play seems to fall from our grasp again and again. Yet as this production reminds us, we must keep reaching for it, believing—as King did—that the arc of history can still bend toward justice.

 

Palm Beach Dramaworks’ ‘The Mountaintop’ captures that fragile faith with beauty and power. Lindsay’s demeanor and voice become King’s at that final moment, transcendent and sonorous, feeling like he is reaching out through the fourth wall, urging us to continue the work he could not finish. It is another Palm Beach Dramaworks ‘must see’ production, a stunning beginning to the 2025/26 season.

 

All Photographs of Christopher Lindsay and Rita Cole by Curtis Brown Photography

 

 

The Emperor Remodels

 As usual, if you want the truth in one picture, turn to our political cartoonists. I’ve sandwiched this entry between cartoons by John Darkow and Mike Luckovich. Both depict the wanton violation of “The People’s House”—tearing down the East Wing to install a grand faux-gold ballroom to satisfy the faux golden boy president. I hear Nero fiddling away. Everything is now in flaming chaos.

 

One wonders when the people who voted for him will finally feel repulsed and deceived. Perhaps all they care about is his entertainment value. If Trump says his playthings are funded by donors, they take it at face value (ignoring the obvious “pay to play”) and cheer on his AI video showing him dumping excrement on the people they hate. His true followers are his enablers—the politicians, the judges, the cronies—all of whom have an open invitation to “The Rose Garden Club” (yes, that’s really its name), which now looks like the patio of Moolah Lago, complete with the new golden ballroom.

 

When SCOTUS declared him immune to just about anything, we all knew what was coming. His pardon of the J6 “tourists” was merely the tip of the iceberg. The ICE website—now under the direction of supreme sycophant Kristi Noem—is advertising a $50,000 sign-on bonus for uber-masculine men who can now legitimately roam our cities masked, seeking out the so-called "invaders" many of them despise. How many of these new ICE recruits are former J6 participants or Proud Boys?

 

And who is going to stop him? All the so-called “laws” that have reigned for decades are really built on good faith. So what if a court rules that he cannot tear down part of the White House without congressional approval—or that he cannot withhold congressionally authorized funds? There is no “police force” to enforce the courts’ decisions. Any other administration would back down once the court had spoken.

 

With all the ICE provocation taking place in American cities, it may be only a matter of time before the Insurrection Act is invoked. Will the military follow orders if asked to fire on protesters? Meanwhile, back in Washington, the demolition goes on and the plutocrats party.

 

More than a Drive to Asheville

  

It was a trip we’d long planned but, in retrospect, poorly thought out. That is the problem of being an octogenarian while your mind insists you’re half that age. I used to love jumping in the car and taking a road trip. This one was a week-long visit to our beloved Asheville, to see how it had fared after the destruction of Helene a year ago, and to visit our dear friend, Joyce. Unlike our dozen or so other stays—usually extended periods in a condo or rental home—this one was only four days, staying at a “hip” downtown hotel.

 

First, though, we stopped in Savannah for the night. Even though we could have driven straight to Asheville in one long day, a midway stop is always a welcome break. Unfortunately, a monster accident on I-95 shut down the highway for 12 hours, forcing us onto the Turnpike and adding another 100 miles and an hour and a half to our first leg. Still, at the unassuming Hampton Inn by the Savannah airport we were rewarded with a spectacular sunrise, which I hoped was a good omen for the rest of the trip.

 

We thought staying downtown Asheville would allow us to ditch the car and walk everywhere—forgetting that its topography is, well, mountainous. Not like our recent trip to NYC or, of course, where we live in “the Free State of Florida,” flatter than a pancake. Walking those hills and dragging our luggage through three destinations took its toll. I did all 1,500 miles of driving (Ann offered, but I foolishly declined) and most of the heavy lifting. Add in the strange hotel beds and my usual back problems, and soon I had what I thought was sciatica.

 

By the time we finished the last leg—twelve straight hours in inexplicably dense Sunday traffic and two major accidents—I arrived home nearly a cripple, the pain in my right leg and hip extreme. My primary care physician ordered X-rays, which only revealed my usual back issues. My spine compression issue apparently reached its tipping point.  I’ve been on medications and rest, unable to do my daily walk or play tennis. Depressing, but I’ll soon start physical therapy to try to break the cycle and get back on track.

 

Still, Asheville worked its magic. We love its laid-back ambiance and mountain beauty. It’s a little oasis in a sea of Christian fundamentalism—as the local TV stations and billboards in Georgia and the Western Carolinas make clear, reflecting deep conservatism and vehement pro-T***p sentiments. But Asheville is different. If you don’t have a tattoo, you’re obviously a visitor. I’ve said this before: it reminds me of my brief stay in NYC’s East Village in the 1960s, or often resembles parts of the once-bohemian, now-gentrified Upper West Side where we lived for years.

 

That first night we ate at the hotel’s rooftop restaurant, which had panoramic views of the town, with the Grove Park Inn in the distance, where we had stayed several times before.

 

One of Ann’s dearest friends, Joyce, now lives in Asheville. Though approaching 100, she just had a successful hip replacement and acts and looks thirty years younger. After our first full day, we had dinner with Joyce and her daughter Pattie at The Chestnut—one of Asheville’s many great restaurants.

 

As for the city itself, it has received only a fraction of the funds promised by FEMA after Helene’s devastation. Perhaps the administration sees it as punishment for the city’s politics. Revenge seems high on their list. Still, downtown was mostly spared, though there seemed to be fewer tourists.

 

Oddly enough, two of our main destinations were bookstores. At Malaprop’s, Asheville’s great independent shop, I found a special annotated edition of Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto, complete with her handwritten notes about the characters and themes—a treasure. 

 

Then a visit to the Asheville Public Library’s used bookstore, where we found a few gems for $1 each finally stowing them in the trunk of our car after that first day’s walk.

 

No trip to Asheville feels complete without lunch at the Pisgah Inn, some 5,000 feet above sea level at Milepost 408.6 on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Although parts of the Parkway had been washed out by the storm, it has mostly reopened. After lunch, we drove in the other direction to the Folk Art Center, where we bought gifts for our hosts, Joe and Kyle, in Big Canoe, Georgia, where we would spend the last two days of our trip.

 

The following day we stayed downtown, particularly Pack Square with its quirky sculptures.

 

And, then, the Asheville Museum of Art which now occupies a relatively new building, and the first thing you see when entering is Wesley Clark’s My Big Black America (2015), an ingenious sculpture of salvaged wood stained and spray painted. I would like to still believe “E pluribus unum.”

 

The museum also gave us a hilarious moment. Just look at this photo:

 

It shows three sculptures—except one wasn’t. When Ann quietly went to sit on what she thought was an empty bench, she startled a young woman already sitting there (very still, looking like an artwork). Both jumped at the sudden appearance of the other!

 

After four wonderful days in Asheville, we drove 200 miles to Joe and Kyle’s vacation home in Big Canoe, about ninety minutes north of Atlanta. The community is filled with gorgeous mountain-style homes perched at different elevations around a large lake, with the requisite golf course, tennis courts, clubhouse, and marina. The weather was perfect, though by now walking was difficult for me. Still, we were treated to a relaxing pontoon boat ride around the lake, its quiet electric engine gliding us along.

 

But soon it was time to pack up and head home—a drive I dreaded, since we were determined not to stop for a hotel. Thankfully, Joe loaded the luggage (I couldn’t manage it) and even guided us out of the community’s winding roads. The last time I relied on GPS it led us to a false exit at the top of a mountain; it took 40 minutes to escape.

 

The drive home was simply awful. I made it in 10 hours last time, but this trip stretched to 12 thanks to traffic, frequent stops to stretch, and two Turnpike accidents. When that road narrows to two lanes, it becomes impassable. Welcome to Florida!

 

It was my intention to write about the unreal news events that unfolded during our trip, but there are so many that including them here would only complicate this entry. Better to save that for a follow-up – perhaps!