It’s nighttime in Memphis and rain is pouring. Inside the Lorraine Motel, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lies with a fever and sore throat. Earlier—unknowingly, hours before his death—he had given his final speech, telling the audience at Mason Temple: “I’ve been to the mountaintop.”

While the speech became one of King’s most famous, we rarely think of its opening words. After being introduced by a colleague, King said, “I listened to [t]his eloquent and generous introduction and then thought about myself, I wondered who he was talking about.”

As a play, The Mountaintop occupies the space between that “eloquent and generous introduction” and the man himself—between history and art, memory and truth. Specifically, The Mountaintop takes place in the hours after King’s speech and just before his death, expanding on historical events into a fictionalized encounter with a mysterious young woman. Written by Katori Hall and directed by Sinjin Jones, the current production at Mountain View’s Pear Theatre runs through Feb. 19, with a live streaming option available. The play runs in repertory with Sunset Baby, also directed by Jones, which extends the former play’s themes of civil rights into the present day.

Growing up, Jones remembers thinking, “Man, what we are reading in the context of this class doesn’t feel like enough.” Too often, history can feel like the story of larger-than-life heroes, far removed from our everyday experience. But behind the history books and speeches are imperfect people—even someone as lionized as Dr. King.

“I’ve always been interested in the stories behind the history,” Jones says. “[King] was pulled out of bed to do that speech. We don’t think about that when we think about the beauty and the awesomeness of his words. What does it take for someone to go deliver this speech in the pouring rain, exhausted and hoarse after traveling the country for so long?”

The story behind The Mountaintop mirrors the path of recent political history: it was first staged in 2009, on the heels of the election of Barack Obama, when pundits declared his presidency the culmination of Dr. King’s work (Obama himself often quoted King’s belief that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”). But by the time the play premiered at The Pear in 2016, much of that hope for change seemed to have curdled.

The Mountaintop draws from history, yet takes us beyond the historical record, leaving space for recontextualization with each staging and new interpretation.

“This play really takes a hard look at the history of the future,” Jones says, adding it “has a lot to do with what I believe our context is right now. Which is to say, I feel like there’s a lot of work to do.”

Part of the work to do is realizing that history is not a passive thing, but something we must continue to struggle with and lay claim to.

“We all have to figure out how we’re going to do this work, because we don’t have a Dr. Martin Luther King,” Jones says. “The things that we thought we had moved past, maybe we haven’t moved past as far as we thought. In the last five years, that has become pretty clear—that some of the wounds we thought we’d healed were maybe just Band-Aided over.”

And while much has changed since 1968, year after year King’s words find new resonance.

“I hope audiences leave with a sense [that King] passed the baton to us,” Jones says. “Who’s going to pick up the baton?”

Here, Jones’s words invoke King’s own conclusion on that rainy night in Memphis, looking ahead at what Jones calls “the history of the future.”

“I would like to live a long life,” King told his audience. “But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. And I may not get there with you. But I want you to know…that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.”

The Mountaintop
Through Feb 19, Various Times, $38
Pear Theatre, Mountain View

In 2021, it’s important to acknowledge that Thanksgiving’s history isn’t necessarily one to be celebrated. At Mountain View’s Pear Theatre, playwright Larissa FastHorse brings that fact to life in her new production “The Thanksgiving Play.” The play follows three “woke” white thespians as they put on an elementary school play about the first Thanksgiving—without all the genocide and culturally appropriative missteps. The satirical take brings to light plenty of dark humor on the holiday, while giving the audience a chance to examine what to really give thanks for.

The Thanksgiving Play
Opens Fri, Various Times, $20+
Pear Theatre, Mountain View

The demand for “wholesome” entertainment has been higher than ever recently, but sometimes you have to confront the darkness. Set in a future where nearly all insects are extinct—causing untold ecological devastation—Somewhere follows two sibling scientists tracking the last monarch butterflies in the world to the west coast, and run into a group of farmers preparing for societal collapse. Somewhere promises to be a beautiful and melancholy reflection on the cost of environmental devastation. Originally slated for last year but delayed by the pandemic, the Pear Theatre’s production will be the West Coast premiere.

Somewhere
Opens Fri, 8pm, $38
Pear Theatre, Palo Alto

After becoming the hit show in Pear Theatre’s 2019 “Pear Slices” showcase, playwright Meghan Maugeri expanded “Mothers of the Bride” into a full-length play. The comedy follows a bride-to-be as she navigates her close relationships with her mother and stepmother, and they in turn negotiate their own complicated relationship and common bonds, offering warm, keen insights on the complicated families people create as they navigate life. The debut show of the Pear’s 20th season, “Mothers of the Bride” will be shown in a hybrid format; patrons may choose to attend the play in person or virtually.

Mothers of the Bride
Opens Thur, Various Times, $20+
Pear Theatre, Mountain View

Those who’ve missed mingling with fellow theatre-lovers now finally have a chance again: Mountain View’s Pear Theatre is throwing a free 20th season soiree for patrons both returning and prospective. Among the festivities (and margaritas), you’ll also get your first chance to subscribe to the upcoming season of terrific productions, the institution’s first under new Artistic Director Sinjin Jones. On offer this year are the world premiere of local playwright Meghan Maugeri’s Mother of the Bride, several double-feature “Pear Pairings,” and the return of the popular Season 12 production of The Tempest. RSVP required.

Pear Launch Party
Sat, 4pm, Free
Pear Theatre, Mountain View

As an author, Italo Calvino favored what he called ‘thoughtful lightness,’ his writing playing out like the waft of a particularly poetic breeze. Late Wedding, by San Francisco playwright Christopher Chen, takes Calvino as inspiration to tell a mind-bending tale of love, longing and marriage through a variety of “interconnected fables” spanning genres and styles. There’s spies, space operatics, marital anthropologists and more. Oh yeah, and it’s all told in second person. A unique thrill, the first show in the Pear Theatre’s return ends this weekend, with options for indoor, outdoor and online showings.

Late Wedding
Fri-Sun, Various Times, $34
Pear Theatre, Mountain View

When Christopher Boone discovers his neighbor’s dog dead with a garden fork sticking out of its body, he unwittingly becomes the prime suspect in an act of animal cruelty he did not commit. A mathematically gifted 15-year-old, Boone is at once highly intelligent and unable to interpret everyday life. On his journey to find the killer’s true identity, he comes to an earth-shattering discovery that changes the course of his life forever in the Tony Award-winning play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Runs through April 5.

Curious Incident
Thu, 7:30pm, $20+
The Pear Theatre, Mountain View

Lynn Nottage’s 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama takes place during the Great Recession of 2008. A group of co-workers, friends and family members struggle to find jobs or cling to the ones they have. When someone is given a chance to move off of the backbreaking factory floor and into a management position, envy and old enmities threaten to tear these long-term relationships apart. Most of the action happens in a neighborhood bar where the community comes together, and where it also starts to disintegrate. Better than an economist’s assessment of the era, Nottage’s writing feels as authentic as documentarian’s film. The play runs through Nov. 10.

Sweat
Thu, 7:30pm, $30+
The Pear Theater, Mountain View

The premise is simple enough. With 12 hours left to live, how would you choose to spend your time? With friends? With family? How about swiping through potential matches on your handset? In outline, Spending the End of the World on OK Cupid, sounds similar to Tom Perrotta’s The Leftovers—albeit with a decidedly absurdist twist. With the entire population of Earth is about to disappear, playwright Jeffrey Lo muses that a dating website will get a great deal of play during humanity’s final hours.

Spending the End of the World on OK Cupid
Sat, 8pm, $28+
The Pear Theatre, Mountain View

Based on Jane Austen’s first novel completed for publication, Northanger Abbey follows 17-year-old Catherine Morland as she learns that life is seldom as glamorous and intriguing as the lives of the characters in her beloved Gothic novels. This production, adapted for the stage by Pear Theatre founder Diane Tasca, kicks off the company’s 17th season. The production features two casts—a “senior” adult cast and a “junior” cast of aspiring young actors. The play runs through Sep. 23.

Northanger Abbey
Fri, 8pm, $15
The Pear Theatre, Mountain View