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| Tyrone Mitchell Henderson & Matthew J. Harris in "Top Dog/Underdog" (photo: T. Charles Erickson) |
So begins the dialogue between two protagonists in the
current Huntington Theatre Company production of Top Dog/Underdog,
the 2002 Pulitzer Prize winning play by Suzan-Lori Parks (Father
Comes Home from the Wars, Parts 1, 2 & 3) . It takes place,
“here” and “now” in the starkly furnished room of two young
African-American men who are brothers, best friends and bitter
rivals. Lincoln (Tyrone Mitchell Henderson), in his late 30's, is a
former three-card monte hustler who now works as a Lincoln
impersonator (in white face) in an arcade shooting gallery where
people pay to shoot at him with plastic guns. Booth (Matthew J.
Harris), in his early 30's, unemployed for quite some time, is a
shoplifter who wants his brother to get back in the game and teach
him the ropes. Both were twice abandoned in their youth, by both
their father and their mother. “Link” seeks advice from Booth in
honing his acting skills as a dying Lincoln, while Booth seeks to
learn how better to execute the card game scam. Their efforts to
attain their respective goals quickly devolves into what is described
in the program notes as a “darkly comic fable of brotherly love and
sibling rivalry...about family wounds and healing bonds”. In the
course of their banter, we learn about Booth's obsession with his
girl friend Grace (whom we never see) and perhaps sexual allusions to
shooting blanks. Parks is particularly adept at such portrayals.
This
two-hander, in its depiction of how each brother aspires to improve
his skills, affords an opportunity to witness both the creation of a
performance and the crucial stakes of enhancing one's success. Parks
has stated that “there is a lot of watching...what theater is
about” and that she likes larger than life characters, setting up a
relationship between audience and performer, wonderfully enhanced by
Director Billy Porter (Kinky Boots, The Colored Museum).
Consider the words of “Link”:
“Fake beard. Top hat. Don't make me into no Lincoln. I was Lincoln
on my own before any of that” and “Cards ain't luck. Cards is
work. Cards is skill.” And those of his brother Booth: “You're
only yourself when no one's watching!”. The title of the play
refers to the psychological term for the dominant side and the
submissive side, and in this work they switch constantly, each
continually trying to be the dominant person in the room. George C.
Wolfe, who directed the play's New York premiere, references a “point
in the play where the two brothers stop being brothers and turn into
male animals. That's when deadly, awful things can happen”. And
Parks' world is one of “curious contradictions”. Porter
references the institutionalized racism that has quietly raged in this country for
years, given the fundamental psychology of slavery as the breakdown
of family, slaves ripped from their families, separated from their
community. They are “constantly trying to come back together...we
succeed a lot, but sometimes we don't. This play speaks to when we
don't...stuck playing someone else's game”. Porter has exquisitely
directed (or more to the point, choreographed) his two exemplary
actors with their every gesture, every inflection, every nuance in
harmony like a concert or ballet. They together produce an emotional
wallop.
The creative team is at the level one expects from this
company. The Lighting Design by Driscoll Otto and Sound Design by
Leon Rothenberg are outstanding, providing a touch of magical
realism. The Scenic Design and Costume Design, both by Clint Ramos,
are truly extraordinary. Ramos' set, described by Porter as a room
floating in the middle of the world, resembles nothing so much as a
perch above a giant briar patch, which, if intentional, would be an
ironic nod to the stereotypical Uncle Remus stories of Br'er Rabbit
and his “laughin' place”. And there is much black humor (no pun
intended) even within these crumbling walls. The details are
wonderful, from the tin ceiling to the torn wallpaper and disrupted
crown molding that are seemingly left over from a converted hotel
ballroom. It creates a great playing space for the two brothers to
interact, and Harris and Henderson make the most of it. Harris has
by far the showier role and is amazingly fluid in his movement and
dialogue, but Henderson in his own quietly storming way is a perfect
match for him. The trio of Porter, Harris and Henderson are what
unforgettable theater is at its best. Porter's work is astonishingly
powerful, the finest piece of directing in decades of one's
theatergoing. Yes, he's that good.
The play has one drawback: the predictability of its
conclusion; but this should be viewed as a dramatic inevitability.
Meanwhile, Parks is hard at work with more universal themes. She has
always maintained that we have an important relationship with the
past, and she continues to do so here. She sees life (especially for
African-American males in this country) as a reaction to who the
world thinks you're going to be, and how you struggle with that.
She also reflects on what it means to be a family, and, extrapolating
to the family of man, how we are connected with somebody else. With
specific reference to this work, she has bluntly stated that “a
black play ain't playing your game. It might look like it's playing
your game, but if it looks that way to you, then that means you been
played, honey”. Porter echoes the thought:”If the three-card
monte dealer doesn't want you to win, you do not win. If you win,
it's only because he lets you”. More to the point, Parks has
Lincoln declare to Booth:”you had the card but you didn't have the
heart”. Parks has been acclaimed for her almost musical writing,
re-imagining the past, filling the “Great Hole of History” as an
archeologist of words. With a subtle sense of improvised jazz-like
repetition and revision (what she calls “Rep and Rev”), she
allows for the presence of metaphor, pulling us in with what she also
refers to as “drama of accumulation”, sometimes reminding one of
the films of Bunuel. One awaits more works from this keenly
observant, still youthful writer; this is especially true given the
recent damage done on the national level to what some of us had
naively beheld as a post-racial era, when we elected and re-elected a
president of color, only to see him be succeeded by a colorful
performer with more dangerous racist tricks than card games up his
sleeves. We need a playwright like Parks now more than ever; as she
herself put it (in the aforementioned Father Comes Home from the
Wars at ART in Cambridge two seasons ago), “keep your
treasure close”.
Watch her close. Watch her close now.
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