Booth who has no skills has also lived by his wits without a steady job but never seems to be in need of ready cash. Lincoln worries about losing his job to a mechanical model which will not need a salary.

The play also investigates the failure of the American Dream. There is the continual hint of an impending explosion them while their names suggest an ending that we don’t see coming. The play’s six scenes resemble vaudevilles as the brothers go through their various memories, beliefs and daily routines. Parks uses this framework to explore brotherhood, race relations, sibling rivalry, family dynamics, bad parenting, sexual one-upmanship, violence, economic systems, and the American Dream. They live in an uneasy truce as there is much water under the bridge from their troubled past, including the fact their mother left them when they were 16 and 13, respectively, and their father went on his way two years later.Ĭorey Hawkins and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in a scene from Suzan-Lori Parks’ “Topdog/Underdog” at the John Golden Theatre (Photo credit: Marc J. Lincoln has been a 3-card monte hustler in the past but gave it up some years ago to earn an honest living though Booth envies him his skill and wishes to follow in his footsteps. Lincoln who ironically works at a carnival arcade as an Abraham Lincoln in white face dressed in frock coat, stovepipe hat and the requisite beard sitting as if watching a play while customers attempt to shoot him with blanks, brings home his weekly salary, while Booth appears to be a hustler who shoplifts for a living. Set in a shabby SRO boarding house with the bathroom down the hall, the play introduces us to Booth and three years older brother Lincoln (their names were their father’s joke) who are sharing Booth’s space since Lincoln’s wife Cookie kicked him out. Parks’ play suggests early Eugene O’Neill in its depiction of life in the lower depths and its use of the vernacular.

Under the astute but leisurely direction of Kenny Leon (Tony Award Best Revivals of A Soldier’s Play, A Raisin in the Sun and Fences), rising stars Corey Hawkins (Tony nominated for Six Degrees of Separation, and appearances in the film versions of In the Heights and The Tragedy of Macbeth) and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Emmy Award winner for HBO’s Watchmen as well as ensemble awards to the cast of The Trial of the Chicago 7) give riveted performances in this two-hander. The 20th anniversary revival of Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Topdog/Underdog, is just as powerful and absorbing as before with its story of two African American brothers Booth and Lincoln who are searching for the American Dream in opposite ways.

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