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TOP DOG/UNDER DOG

LUNA’S ‘TOPDOG’ TOPS THE PLAYS IN NEW JERSEY’S THEATER SEASON
Thursday, May 05, 2005
by THOM MOLYNEAUX for The Montclair Times

“Topdog/Underdog” at Luna Stage may be the best play and production of the New Jersey theater season. And the “maybe” is in that sentence only because I haven’t seen every single professional production that’s played here in the Garden State.

I can state with certainty that the Luna Stage production of Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play is a vibrantly alive, immediate and resonant touch-stone of great theater. Theatrically, this is as good as it gets!

The immediate story concerns two African-American brothers, quixotically named Booth and Lincoln, abandoned by their parents, and now struggling to survive in the cold hard world of present-day America. The younger brother, Booth, keeps his body together by shoplifting and fuels his soul with the pursuit of the “Amazing” Grace, the girl of his dreams, and his ambition to master the slick street hustle of three-card monte.

The older brother, Link, dons a stovepipe hat, fake beard and white-face makeup to play Abraham Lincoln in a carny side show, where the customer puts down his money, picks up a gun, sneaks behind the seemingly unsuspecting president and assassinates him. For Link, playing Abraham Lincoln is a haven from his former life in the game. He was at one time the best of the three-card monte dealers, racking in the money, partying with the ladies and living high, until one of his crew was shot and killed and “I knew I was next. so I quit. I saved my life.”

Now, Booth wants Link to get back in the game, Link resists and we soon understand that this isn’t as much about making money as it is about each brother’s sense of identity, the “what” they do, being “who” they are. And this sense of identity is broached early in the play with Booth’s announcement that he’s changing his name and Link’s helpful advice on African names. “Pick something that’s easy to spell and pronounce…No one’s gonna hire you if they can’t say your name. And some of them fellas who got they African names, no one can say they names and they can’t say they names neither. I mean you don’t want your new handle to obstruct your employment possibilities.”

Booth’s current nonemployment necessitates his acquiring much of his material goods via the shoplifting route. One of the funniest scenes in the play is his return from a shopping spree in a bulky coat, and unpacking from that coat two expensive suits, two pairs of shoes, shirts , ties and belts that he “boosted” that day in one trip to one large department store or as he puts it, “I stole and I stole generously.”

The brothers’ immediate situation, their need to be family, to claim their identity, their manhood and their rightful place, leads inexorably to the climactic personal tragedy. As effective as the story of these two very real and specific individuals is, that story resonates out into the biblical and mythical, connecting with the very first brothers, Cain and Abel. It also vibrates in tune with the historical and political: the complexity and injustice of race relations in America. Suzan-Lori Parks has written an intelligent, multilayered script filled with humanity, humor that rides the language and rhythms of a street-smart urban poetry.

Jamahl Marsh brings a volatility, toughness, intelligence and vulnerability to the role of Booth. And if his is, arguably, one of the best performances of the season, Shane Taylor’s older brother comes in a close second. He brings similar qualities to his Lincoln, with an added touch of hard-earned maturity and wisdom.

Director Eric Ruffin deserves full credit for the high quality performances and the high voltage clarity he brings to Parks’ script. Larry W. Brown has designed a perfectly seedy one-room apartment that even manages to turn Luna’s problematic pillar into a scenic asset. The lighting design of Jill Nagle and Joseph Galione’s original music and sound design are effective and integral to the realization of this powerful production.

“Topdog/Underdog” plays through May 22 at Luna Stage, 695 Bloomfield Ave.