‘The Mountaintop’ stage play reimagines last night of Dr. King’s life

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - A fictional version of the last night of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life plays out on stage at Marietta’s Theater in the Square.

The Mountaintop is entirely set in Dr. King’s room in the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, the night before his murder in 1968.

Louie Love, who plays the role of Dr. King, wanted to humanize the civil rights leader.

“I want people to remember that yeah he was human, he was flawed, he had failings, he also did some great things that benefitted all of us,” Love says.

The play centers around Dr. King, and a fictional character, a maid named Camae.

It’s a role Tanya Freeman tried to bring some humor to.

“He was a man, and that’s why she’s here, just to remind him, ‘you are just a man, you’re not God, you’re human,’” explains Freeman.

Conversations between the two focus on Dr. King’s hopes and fears, leading to Camae later revealing she is an angel sent by God.

“The angel that is coming giving him a chance to go from this world to the next one, like going home, is one of his favorite songs,” says director Prodan Dimov.

Dimov says Dr. King is highly regarded even in his home country of Bulgaria. Dimov says as a director he doesn’t need to be a black man to understand Dr. King’s accomplishments and lead the cast of the stage play.

“I think the theater is theater it doesn’t matter the skin and the color, we are people, " Dimov says.

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