Speaking of cultural divides, what’s with the Brits? This play by newcomer Katori Hall, set on the night before Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination, won an Olivier Award for Best New Play in 2010. But what could the voters have seen in this amateurish and formulaic work? There are only two characters: King, alone in his room at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, and the hotel maid who delivers him food and stays to gab, endlessly. From the outset, King is brought down to human size: he has smelly feet, craves cigarettes and has an eye for ladies (though nothing scandalous here). The hotel maid, however, is not all she appears to be.
Samuel L. Jackson does a passable Dr. King, but Angela Bassett, as the maid, gives possibly the worst performance by a major actress I’ve ever seen on Broadway: babbling, gawking, hopping about like some deranged child, with frequent bursts of profanity that she has to instantly apologize for (a gag that gets old very fast). The play’s big twist will come as a surprise to few, nor will the uplifting denouement, a pageant-like celebration of the legacy that King left upon his death. He may have had smelly feel at start of the play, but by the end he’s the same old saint.