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At the Alliance: A horrific ‘Topdog/Underdog’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “Topdog/Underdog.” Through Dec. 19.
The socially invisible brothers in Suzan-Lori Parks’ “Topdog/Underdog” don’t succeed at much of anything. They can’t keep women or jobs or booze, but have better luck at shoplifting and the sidewalk con game called three-card monte.
Seems it’s been a downward spiral since their father named them Lincoln and Booth.
“It was his idea of a joke,” says Lincoln to Booth in the first scene of this explosive roundelay of claustrophobia, sibling rivalry and self-annihilation. And by the time their story begins, their fate has gotten more absurd: Lincoln has been reduced to imitating his famous namesake in a carnie act that requires him to wear a stovepipe hat and whiteface, while taking blank shots from would-be assassins.
This is just the opening salvo of the virtuosic and ambitious play that won Parks the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for drama. Receiving its Atlanta premiere on the Alliance Theatre's Hertz Stage, "Topdog/Underdog” distills the troubling history of racial struggles in America into a disturbing domestic portrait that ultimately lurches into a riveting psychological thriller.
It's a tribute to director Kent Gash and his first-rate team of actors and designers that they are able to capture the beauty in the bloodbath. Eugene Lee's rat-in-a-cage design and Liz Lee's sensitive lighting capture the brothers' suffocating existence in a New York rooming house, while Justin Ellington's original score and Clay Benning's soundscape evoke the choking melancholy of the blues.
But even more remarkable is how this company finds the musicality in Parks' language, the humanity and tentative affections of her characters and the comedic undertones in the fraternal conflict. (With their minstrel shtick, clown drag and "skrimp" takeout, Lincoln and Booth are archetypal tramps with nothing, existential fools lost in a compressed and collapsing urban cosmos.)
Though Kes Khemnu played Booth on opening night to Joe Wilson Jr.’s Lincoln, the actors will alternate roles at subsequent performances — a repertory feat that demands that they memorize Parks’ verbally dense, emotionally zigzagging two-hander in its 105-page entirety.
This production is not as wound-up as the original at New York’s Public Theater, starring Jeffrey Wright as Lincoln and Don Cheadle as Booth (a part that Mos Def later picked up on Broadway). The comedic timing is better, the characters are more akin to people we know, and the tone is blessed with a more intimate, handmade appeal.
Padded with stolen clothing, Khemnu's Booth is stocky, messy, almost sweet. It is poignant that he can't match his brother in the rhythms of three-card monte or the bravado of the bedroom (or so he is led to believe). Like Lenny in Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men,” Booth's gentleness makes him nobler and, later, more menacing. Wilson imbues Lincoln with such virile elegance that even his Abraham Lincoln costume is dapper.
Parks, whose previous works include "Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom" and "The Death of Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World," writes intellectually rigorous plays that push the form. "Topdog/Underdog" is her mainstream breakthrough, but it remains thorny and challenging.
Thankfully, Gash has taken a brilliant rant and turned it into a fully realized drama that feels fluid, organic and mysterious. Like August Wilson, Parks writes politically overt commentaries that play more like entertainments than sermons. “Topdog/Underdog” may be a story of envy and murder, but it keens with love and sorrow.
THE VERDICT: At long last, one of the most potent plays of our time.
8 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays (no show Nov. 25); 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays. Through Dec. 19. $25-$30. Alliance Theatre, 1280 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 404-733-5000, www.alliancetheatre.org.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Theater
Comments
By Hilary
November 19, 2004 10:34 AM | Link to this
I agree! The set and lighting really added to the effect of emotional claustrophobia and building tension, and both actors gave great, nuanced performances. Too bad the Alliance doesn’t have a special discount ticket arrangement to see the actors in the alternating roles. I’d save my ticket stub and see it again!
By Hilary
November 29, 2004 02:02 PM | Link to this
I was told by an associate from the Alliance that there is a discount on tickets for those wanting to see the actors in alternate roles. Hurray! Check with the box office at the theatre.