Playwright: Suzan-Lori Parks
At: Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre, 927 Noyes St., Evanston. Tickets: $15; Noyes Cultural Center; 847-866-5915. Runs through: July 29
In the Pulitzer Prize-winning Topdog/Underdog, by Suzan-Lori Parks, two brothers struggle with some of the cultural, family, and societal aspects of being young Black men in the United States.
Named Lincoln and Booth by their father for a joke, the boys were abandoned by both parents when they were young and left to take care of each other. Lincoln is the titular "topdog"older, steadily employed ( as an arcade Abraham Lincoln whom tourists can "shoot" ), possessed of great skill with cards he has used to make a living before and could again. Booth, the younger sibling, can boast only of a ratty apartment, an on-again-off-again relationship with girlfriend Grace and a less-than-adept skill at three-card monte.
Parks paints these siblings with some beautiful language. Of his feelings about the gun used by the tourists are complicated by memories of a best friend gunned down in the streets, Linc says, "The gun is always cold. Winter or summer the gun is always cold. And when the gun touches me he can feel that I'm warm and he knows I'm alive. And if I'm alive then he can shoot me dead. And for a minute, with him hanging back there behind me, it's real."
For his part, Booth is more concerned about his relationship with Grace. In a highly embellished recounting of a night in her company, he says, "She wants me back. She wants me back so bad she wiped her hand over the past where we wasn't together just so she could say. ... She been mine since the dawn of time."
The notion of deception runs throughout almost all of the play. The brothers are never totally honest with each other, both keeping secrets and outright lying. The central card game, too, three-card monte, is notorious for its power to deceive "marks" into believing they have a chance to win when, as Linc points out, "It may look like you got a chance but the only time you pick right is when the man lets you." Both brothers are guilty of not letting the other win in one way or another.
Jelani Pitcher and Keith Illidge are superb as Booth and Lincoln, respectivelyeach creating just enough sympathy for his character that we can ( almost ) overlook when they do something unkind or even terrible. And Parks' script helps there as well: she creates so many marvelously humorous moments that the audience doesn't have time to anticipate any darkness. Director Tim Rhoze calls the play "a fierce combination of dark comedy and high-stakes drama," and he certainly does his job well in bringing us that combination, both in the pacing of the scenes and in the performances from his actors. I could have done with a lot less of the overwhelming jazz music playing through many scenes, but it did certainly set a mood, which is undoubtedly what Roze wanted. In all, Topdog/Underdog is a powerful piece of theater, and Fleetwood-Jourdain does the play and its author proud.