E.B. Smith in the final scene from "The Mountaintop"

 Mill Mountain's 'The Mountaintop' Examines MLK's Final Hours

Mill Mountain Theatre has launched its ambitious production of “The Mountaintop,” a fictional examination of Martin Luther King’s last night before his assassination April 4, 1968, at the shabby Lorraine Motel in Memphis. The play's reception through Friday night was lukewarm, but live theatre in Roanoke has struggled to attract African-American audiences for years. This play is about one of the real 20^th Century icons of the Civil Rights movement.

The Fringe Theatre production is on the Waldron Stage (across from Fire Station #1) and tickets can be ordered by calling (540) 342-5748. Tickets are $25 and $15 for adults and young people and are subject to a “convenience fee.”

This is an hour and a half, two-character telling of King’s imagined last hours, where he meets the angel assigned to take him “home,” ostensibly via a bullet from the gun of James Earl Ray. There remains doubt and controversy that Ray acted alone, but the play does not discuss the killing in any detail.

Shannon Sharkey effectively plays Camae, the motel maid sent to deliver coffee to King at check-in, who eventually reveals she is an angel sent to ensure King makes it to heaven. Hers is a vital part in the imaginings of award-winning writer Katori Hall and she delivers with authority, seriousness and humor the role deserves. Sharkey is an Atlanta-based actor, model, educator, and diversity consultant.

King is forcefully (and loudly) played by E.B. Smith, a business professional with considerable acting credits. In this drama, King and Camae spend much of the final evening discussing King’s sometimes shady, often inspiring background, his goals and the final reality that he has only hours to live.

Their interaction ranges from a genuinely funny pillow fight, constant requests by King for “one more cigarette” from her, to King recoiling at the prospect that she is really an angel. A crucial scene features King talking on the phone to God (a woman), making the case that his death would be premature because he has “so much left to do.” Of course, he loses, but the back-and-forth with Sharkey’s earthy, potty-mouth angel with a colorful history is often fascinating.

Veteran director Marci Duncan understands the power of this play and brings it in with authority. Bill Munoz is the production stage manager who has worked at Flat Rock Playhouse, near Hendersonville, N.C., for 30 years.