Martin Luther King's womanising examined in Katori Hall's play for MTC Bert LaBonté is more than capable of emulating the preacher's oratorical cadences. THEATRE: The Mountaintop, by Katori Hall, Melbourne Theatre Company. November 6 AS sliding-door moments go, Martin Luther King Jr's brush with death in Harlem in 1958 was a doozy. On a Saturday afternoon in September, signing copies of his first book Striding Towards Freedom, King was approached by "a demented black woman" (his words) who stabbed him with a letter opener. The tip of the blade rested against his aorta. The New York Times reported that King was a literal sneeze away from death until his chest was opened up and the blade removed. Nine and a half years later, on the eve of his murder, King devoted several minutes of his famous final sermon in Memphis to the knifing and a letter he received from a white ninth-grade student who wrote, simply, "I'm so happy that you didn't sneeze." He also listed the milestone events he lived to see because he survived the department store attack. Like many of King's best speeches, the mountaintop sermon rambles and meanders then gathers suddenly in a lightning bolt climax: a mere 70 seconds at the tail-end of 43 minutes. Katori Hall's play about the last night of King's life bravely emulates the structure and thrust of that sermon. But, happily, the meandering is delightful. A tired and paranoid King is holed up in Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel after his sermon at the Bishop Mason Temple. He sends Ralph Abernathy out for cigarettes, he works on his "why America may go to hell" speech and tries to call his wife. And he flirts with the smart-mouthed maid Camae, who brings him a coffee. Beyond observing that Camae is not what she seems, little more can be said of the plot without spoiling its many and considerable surprises. Hall approaches her subject with an easy balance of curiosity and imagination, of respect and playfulness. She genuinely wants to know how "the moral leader of the nation" (A. Philip Randolph's words) can be a shameless womaniser, and how a man under constant threat can step up, again and again. Camae is Hall's teaser, her angel provocateur. It's an enormous credit to Bert LaBonté"s authority that we accept him as King from the moment he appears. LaBonté is more than capable of emulating the preacher's oratorical cadences, as we discover in the last scene of the play, but it is his apparently effortless charisma that carries the character. That said, LaBonté plays second fiddle to Zahra Newman's scintillating Camae for a great proportion of the play. Director Alkinos Tsilimidos understands the text, and trusts it. He doesn't overplay its black humour, which would be deadly. Nor does he overplay the script's magic. The Mountaintop is a polished and most enjoyable production. THEATRE The Mountaintop by Katori Hall. Melbourne Theatre Company. Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne, November 6. Season ends December 18. Duration: 95 minutes, no interval. Tickets: $67-$99. Bookings: (03) 8688 0800 or online.