What if your family legacy is fraught with abandonment and uncertainty? Two brothers make their way in the world after their mother leaves them and their father does the same two years later — each never to be heard from again. Each of their parents also had adulterous affairs, leaving the boys to wonder if they left to have new, “better” families. How does this shape them?
For Lincoln (Brandon Michael Hall) and Booth (Brandon Gill) — so named by their father as a “joke” — it means making their way by hustling at cards, “boosting” clothing and other items they need, and living in a basement studio with no running water. It means that one takes a demeaning job while the other refuses to hold a job. It means both drink “medicine” and one keeps a gun with him at all times.
Through their lively yet guarded camaraderie, we see that instead of supporting each other, the brothers survive together, perhaps never trusting enough to love. It's important for each to be a man, to fool others in order to have money and women whom they can get pregnant. Through often comical ribbing, they compete for who is more manly, routinely deriding each other’s sexual prowess to gain the upper hand.
Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks packs “Topdog/Underdog” with fast, smart, often funny dialogue, allowing it to win the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in Drama. And as directed by Gregg T. Daniel ("The Piano Lesson"), both accomplished actors handle that language skillfully, delivering the profusion of lines clearly and with felt emotion — almost rhythmically like a dance — resulting in riveting theatre.
We get to know both men as they dance around each other in the small space of the run-down apartment (made realistic by Tesshi Nakagawa’s brilliantly detailed set). But there is a relentless tension between them, underscored by the driving music of Tru played between scenes. Little by little, though, we get more of what happened to them as children.
Older brother Linc, having been kicked out of his marriage, now works at an arcade to make money, ironically performing as President Abraham Lincoln in whiteface (being Black) and wearing a top hat and beard. He describes how patrons approach him from behind — multiple times a day — pretending to be John Wilkes Booth and firing a fake gun at the back of his head to “kill” him as he simply sits.
Meanwhile, the younger and more animated Booth practices his three-card hustle so he can earn money on the streets. He wants his older brother to show him his old moves, since Lincoln used to be a master hustler until his partner Lonny was shot dead. But by the time Lincoln agrees to teach him, the tension between the brothers has escalated to a seemingly unstable level as Linc “wins” his brother’s only tie to their mother — a rolled-up wad of bills wrapped in a stocking.
“Comedy and tragedy can exist at the same time,” Parks notes in the playbill. Unlike Greek or Shakespearian tragedy, in which the tragic figure is blind to something, refusing to act in a right or timely manner, here the brothers’ abilities and choices seem handicapped by their parents’ actions. But perhaps their parents were also betrayed by their own parents, all inheritors from a time rooted in slavery of people shuffled around like Booth’s cards, only one in three a “winner.”
The genius of the play is how Lincoln and Booth — embodied so well by Hall and Gill — bring home the pain of that legacy while allowing us to experience the bright and tender humanity of their characters. The dramatic irony of the brothers’ names and Linc’s job, and the Chekhovian appearance of the gun, perhaps foreshadow something that feels impossible but may be inevitable.
And yet, as director Daniel notes, there are moments that suggest healing is possible amidst the brothers’ experience of “poverty, racism, and violence.” This immersive production, through its dynamic acting and intricate staging, invites us to believe that is true.
“Topdog/Underdog” continues through March 23 at Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena, with shows Wednesday at 8 p.m., Thursday at 7 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. For tickets and information, call the box office at (626) 356-7529 or visit PasadenaPlayhouse.org.
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