Friday, February 12, 2010
‘The Mountaintop,’ Play About Martin Luther King Jr., Planned for Broadway
ArtsBeat Blog - NYTimes.com: "“The Mountaintop,” a new two-character play that imagines a surprising turn of events for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the night before his assassination, is aiming for Broadway in the fall, the producers Jean Doumanian and Sonia Friedman announced Wednesday."
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6 comments:
This definitely seems to be a very timely and interesting show, but I would like to know more about the playwright and given circumstances. Everyone is aware of MLK, so it's always refreshing to see a new spin on a popular "subject". I'd love to see what new story or angle this playwright is bringing to a figure so many think they know so much about. Hopefully this script remains truthful to the actual events of Luther's life, but shows its audience a new side that we did not know existed. I'd hate to legendize MLK into a figure that is completely different from who he really was, if that has not already happened.
I agree with Mary. After listening to the speaker for Critical Histories on Martin Luther King Day, I've given a bit more thought to the subject of MLK. He's someone I've figuratively grown up with, but all I really know about him is his affiliation with a few political protests, several interesting personal facts, and one very famous speech. This does not diminish MLK's achievements, but the speaker brought to our attention that there is a lot of information we are not aware of, and we have all, for the most part, grown up admiring someone we don't really know. I would be very curious to see this new spin and learn a few things in the process.
While I agree that it would be nice to get a fresh spin on this legendary man, it seems to me from the article that this show is doing exactly as Mary said she hopes it does not; "legendize MLK into a figure that is completely different from who he really was". The article states that this production is complete fiction, which is not a bad thing persay, but I think that by doing so some people are going to conclude that these events actually happened, and in the future might attest that these happenings are true. I am none the less interested in seeing this show, for it seems to be very interesting.
This play seems like it could be a very interesting interpretation of the events leading to Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, but I wonder how he would feel about the creation of this piece of theatre. On MLK Day, Dr. James Cone spoke at the MLK Program in Rangos Hall, and from what he said about MLK and his beliefs, I get the impression that MLK might not be happy that this play was created. I think he would wish that people would stop focusing so much about what happened to himself, and would ask people, and playwrights in this case, to focus more on creating social equality and justice in our country through art and theatre. Perhaps our energies would be better focused by fighting for what MLK believed through the arts rather than retelling and recreating a few events in his life. But maybe the play will do this as well. It will still be a very interesting piece of theatre.
I hope that this piece translates well onto the broadway stage. I think it has to potential to be great and I agree with everybody above that it is awesome to see a new look at such a devastating event in history. I also hope that this play is able to put new life into MLK's message that to this day is important and sometimes forgotten.
This seems like something that can make a big impact. I know that some critics say that as long as something is written form a different culture or socio-economic perspective than the audiences, that they may find it "brilliant" but, I think that they might not have anything to say to about this one. Seeing as to how previous studies in physiological priming showed that if one may be thinking about him or other freedom fighters before the test, that they will associate a lot less with their usual prejudices.
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