Moving mountains

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This article was published 03/02/2021 (2059 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!”

— Martin Luther King Jr. speaks in Memphis the day before his assassination

Like theatre companies all over the world, the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre has been forced to improvise when it comes to creating plays in the era of COVID-19.

The company has been quick on its feet to provide a drama that was never previously announced before this month. Playwright Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop is a two-hander about the final night in the life of civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. before his assassination on the evening of April 4, 1968. It will be produced on the mainstage, but will only be accessible in digital format, streaming from Feb. 26 at 7:30 p.m. to March 14.

It will feature local actors Ray Strachan as King and Cherissa Richards as Camae, a motel maid who spends some time with King before revealing a profound secret. The play is directed by RMTC’s associate artistic director Audrey Dwyer, who says the scale of the show, with just two performers, was just one of the factors that made it an ideal entry into the company’s program.

“(We were) responding to the COVID crisis by looking at how many people can be on stage in safe ways but also asking: How can we elevate artists in this time? How can we create space for big ideas in our conversations?”

The play also falls into Black History Month, which Dwyer calls “a wonderful time of the year for us to reflect on the past, celebrate the enormous achievement of Black artists, inventors, scientists. So to do The Mountaintop at this time is a perfect response to the condition of blackness both in the ‘60s and how we are addressing it today.”

The show also allowed cast and crew to rehearse on the stage itself, as opposed to the Zoom rehearsals that have been taking much of the joy out of the process in the past year.

“It’s such a treat to be able to be back in the space,” says Richards.

“The fact that we are even able to do it at all is a gift,” Richards says. “It’s so incredible to be able to be in a room creating again.”

“We all share the same feeling just coming into this building,” says Strachan, the first Winnipeg Theatre Award best actor winner in 2018 for his work in the play The Whipping Man.

“For me personally, coming into the rehearsal hall, it’s just my favourite thing,” Strachan says. “ I feel like I’m my best version of Ray in the rehearsal hall so I am ecstatic to be back.”

Playing the role of Martin Luther King in his private life presented a challenge Strachan embraced.

“MLK is kind of taken off his pedestal in this particular play, so I kind of get to experiment and research and try and figure out what he sounded like behind the scenes,” he says. “I find it challenging that way.”

Tickets for The Mountaintop are $20 (+GST ) and are available starting Wednesday. Tickets can be ordered online at royalmtc.ca.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @FreepKing