The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s last night on Earth imagined in clear-eyed ‘Mountaintop’

“The Mountaintop,” a play by Katori Hall that had its Broadway premiere in 2011 in a production starring Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett, momentously takes place at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 3, 1968 — the eve of the Rev. Played by Jon Michael Hill, King has just delivered his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” address at Mason Temple in Memphis. He’s already at work on his next oratory, which sets out to explain “why America is going to hell.” “They really gonna burn me on the cross for that one,” he mutters to himself. Amanda Warren as Camae and Jon Michael Hill as Martin Luther King Jr. in “The Mountaintop” at the Geffen Playhouse. One might expect the historical figure at the heart of the play to be the dominant force, but “The Mountaintop” really belongs to Camae, who more than holds her own against the august Reverend.