BWW Review: Underground Railway Theater Scales THE MOUNTAINTOP

The Mountaintop premiered in London in 2009 and won the 2010 Olivier Best New Play Award. It opened on Broadway in September, 2011, with Samuel L. Jackson making his Broadway debut and Angela Bassett co-starring. Surrounding and supporting the Underground Railway Theater production are a series of "Central Conversations" with the theme "Passing the Baton: Celebrating and Carrying Forward the Legacy of Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement." (A complete schedule of these events can be found on the website.)

When Dr. King made what turned out to be his final speech, he said that he had been to the mountaintop and seen the Promised Land. He suggested that he might not get there with them, but that his people would get to the Promised Land. In the play, he wonders aloud to Camae whether there will be someone else to take up the baton if he is not destined to get there. They're lining up at the Central Square Theater to have that conversation and to keep the baton in motion. That should be the legacy of this powerful and riveting play.

Photo credit: A. R. Sinclair (Maurice Emmanuel Parent, Kami Rushell Smith)