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TOP DOG/UNDER DOG

“THESE 'DOGS' BARK, BITE AND CAPTIVATE
Monday, May 02, 2005
BY PETER FILICHIA
Star-Ledger Staff

Lincoln and Booth are back in a theater.

Not Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth, who had their date with history 140 years ago last month at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. This Lincoln and Booth are two African-American characters on the boards at Luna Stage in Montclair.

They’re the two brothers in Suzan-Lori Parks’ 2002 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “Topdog/Underdog.”

The lads’ father decided to name them Lincoln and Booth as a joke, not considering how the monikers would affect the poor kids while growing up. What did Dad care? He bolted when Lincoln was 16 and Booth was 11. So did Mom.

That was some years ago, but both Lincoln and Booth have plenty of scars from being abandoned. Each works very hard to pretend that their parents’ leaving just doesn't matter, and never did.

In Eric Ruffin’s excellent production, Shane Taylor (Lincoln) and Jamahl Marsh (Booth) demonstrate the stiff-upper-lip and bravado that young men in this position feel they must show. But there's much pain and sensitivity under the surface, and both actors are impressive in displaying the chinks in the considerable psychological armor they've been wearing for years.

Parks’ script gives a searing indictment of what young men endure being alone in the inner city. There they are, on Larry W. Brown's wonderfully woebegone set, an SRO with only a few pieces of floral wallpaper left on the wall. The brothers don't wonder, “Where have all the flowers gone?” They're used to this type of environment.

Booth feels his future is in becoming a three-card monte expert. Lincoln once believed this, too, and made a lucrative living by hustling passers-by into guessing which was the red card among the three he kept switching and shuffling.

Now, though, Lincoln has opted for a genuine full-time job. He says he’s happy because he gets to sit all day, and he gets benefits. But it's not a job that many of us would care to put on our résumés. What's more, even though he knows he’s demeaned by it, he’s quite worried that he’ll soon lose it – and will be replaced by an inanimate object.

As impressive as Marsh and Taylor are, they deserve extra credit for learning to be so adept at three-card monte. Many a theatergoer will find himself challenged – and probably defeated – by the actors' expertise.

These men both have a profound need to be loved, and there’s a good deal of talk about their relationships with women. They don't seem to tell time by either clock or calendar, but by their romances. “When Cookie was in love with you” is a milestone often cited by Booth, to Lincoln’s unhappiness.

Most poignant of all is the night that Booth expects a woman to visit him. He continues to delude himself that she’ll show even when she's six hours late. He’s transformed the two milk crates and an unfolded cardboard box into a dinner table, decorated with china, silver and crystal which he “boosted.” That's the prevailing euphemism for “stole.”

Yet there's some room for joy. Taylor’s every step is more of a dance move than something pedestrian. Marsh exhibits great euphoria when he gets a date. “It’s the biggest night of my life,” he exclaims, and he makes an audience believe it.

A play that wins a Pulitzer should have run more than four months on Broadway, but this small play got lost in a theater with more than a thousand seats. “Topdog/Underdog” works so much better in the cozy confines of Luna Stage. The first line of the play is “Watch me close” – and how nice that Montclair audiences can do just that.