04/06/25

The Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh

Katori Hall’s 2009 play bristles with prescience in this stirring revival, directed by Rikki Henry. We’re in Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel, Memphis, where a tired, sick Dr Martin Luther King Jr (Caleb Roberts) is planning on writing through the night. But, as the night in question is April 3 1968, we know this work will never make it to completion. Instead, assassination awaits.

The great man’s famous “I’ve been to the mountaintop” metaphor is gloriously realised in Hyemi Shin’s set design, the room balanced precariously on a slab of jutting rock protruding from the dark earth, offering little protection from the Biblical storm raging outside. There are climbing ropes too, tethering King to earthly reality even as they call for his ascension.

As ever, MLK is up against it. He’s in Memphis to promote his Poor People’s Campaign, and to support the striking Black sanitation workers. He’s a divisive figure: a hero to those he’s championing; a thorn in the side of the establishment. White supremacists hate him. How can he allow himself to rest when there is so much injustice to address? He calls the motel’s reception to ask for coffee, and salvation arrives in the form of housekeeping. It’s Camae (Shannon Hayes)’s first day on the job, and she’s beyond excited to meet her idol. Of course he can have one of her cigarettes.

In this fictional encounter between the real-life martyr and the made-up maid, Hall illuminates the flawed reality of King, who was, after all, a mere mortal, as prone to weakness as the rest of us. What set him apart wasn’t saintliness, it was conviction, purpose, determination – and the belief that he could be the change. As he laments the failures of his beloved America, the message comes across loud and clear, and is particularly important today: you don’t have to be special to make a difference. You just have to show up and fight.

Roberts and Hayes make an electric duo in this fierce two-hander, which lurches from realism to expressionism with thrilling momentum. Roberts imbues his warts-and-all depiction of MLK with so much warmth and charisma that we forgive him his trespasses. After all, if God (with whom he argues via the motel’s landline) can summon him to Heaven, who are we to argue with Her? Hayes makes for a perfect antagonist, her spirited Camae proving more than a match for the mighty King, challenging him both politically and personally. Issues of race and equity are illuminated rather than undermined by the humour that punctuates the couple’s verbal sparring, and Camae’s final monologue, accompanied by Lewis den Hertog’s black and white video design, is a stark reminder both of MLK’s legacy and of the battles yet to come.

4.5 stars

Susan Singfield