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“˜Topdog’ a compelling exploration of brotherhood

By Rhea Cortado

Feb. 18, 2004 9:00 p.m.

“Topdog/Underdog” Ahmanson
Theater

From the beginning, playwright Susan-Lori Parks sets up history
to repeat itself with two brothers named Lincoln and Booth in her
Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Topdog/Underdog.” Parks
pushes the pun further with Lincoln’s job: role-playing as
President Abraham Lincoln in white face makeup at an arcade as kids
re-enact the assassination of the president by shooting him in the
back with a cap gun.

Throughout the play, only the two brothers are seen on stage in
a rundown one-bedroom apartment. The deliberately opposing
personalities of the characters made it difficult to form an
opinion against either one. A fault for one character could be
argued as a strength in the other.

The most compelling aspect of the play is the constant
competition between the two brothers for the audience’s
favor. The way that Parks unfolds a relatively simple situation is
actually entertaining, yet provokes questions about the big
brother/little brother dynamic in general.

Lincoln, the older brother ““ played by Harold Perrineau,
best known for his role as Mercutio in Baz Luhrmann’s
“Romeo + Juliet” ““ is a former legendary
three-card monte hustler who is now a frustrated man of honest
employment in poverty.

The younger brother, Booth, played by Larry Gillard, Jr., is
more sentimental, constantly dragging out old memories of
childhood, a trait that eventually leads to his breakdown.
Booth’s delusions of grandeur ““ hustling at three-card
monte ““ can’t be achieved without Lincoln’s
expertise.

Parks’s control of the two characters through their
language is what separates the play from good to prize-winning.
Booth rattles off like a speed freak to match his jittery
mannerisms and quick hand as a thief. His hyperactive energy
illustrates an anxiousness to grow up and catch up to Lincoln.
Though Lincoln supposedly is the top dog, Booth steals every scene
where he is present. At the same time, when Booth becomes dramatic,
he equally goes over the top, so much that it looks too
theatrical.

Lincoln’s words, in contrast, are smooth with a poetic
rhythm. Though he is obviously frustrated with their economic
position, he never lets on about any emotional weakness, sustaining
the top dog position in the brotherly relationship. Even as Booth
throws verbal punches at Lincoln’s speculated impotency,
Lincoln lets it slide and sways on with the bottle of liquor in
hand. The tragedy of their relationship is Booth’s struggle
to resolve the gap between them, as Lincoln maintains their
distance.

Between the brothers’ joking about the daily grind,
serious psychological issues like parental abandonment and strange
sexual situations get slipped into the conversation as Parks
teeters between doses of comedy and drama. The play’s
indecisiveness proved to be a benefit in showing what theater can
achieve with only two characters. The only thing that
“Topdog/Underdog” lacked was the happy ending that the
audience knew could not be.

““Rhea Cortado

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