The Arden Theatre and People’s Light present Suzan Lori-Parks’s Topdog/Underdog

The brilliance of that script shines through at the Arden Theatre Company, which is reviving the 2002 Pulitzer Prize winner in a co-production with People’s Light. But if Amina Robinson’s staging is your first exposure to this mordant dark comedy, you might come away wondering why it’s held in such high esteem.

Taking place entirely in a claustrophobic tenement hotel room in an unnamed city, Topdog/Underdog follows the volatile, co-dependent relationship of two brothers, cheekily named Lincoln (Akeem Davis) and Booth (George McGriff). As these monikers suggest, violence embeds itself in their interactions, where even jovial banter holds an unwelcome edge. Notice, for example, how Booth often fiddles with a gun wedged in his waistband: sometimes playfully, sometimes menacingly.

A playwright’s fascination

Parks holds a fascination with the country’s 16th president, whom she reads as emblematic of America’s promise and its problems. As in The America Play, which the Wilma revived earlier this year, the elder brother works as an Abraham Lincoln impersonator at an arcade, where spectators pay a few pennies for the opportunity to assassinate him. Lincoln’s jarring first appearance—still in his high hat and fake beard, his Black face painted stark white—remains the sort of image that sears itself in your mind, coloring the rest of the play.

But here, Parks focuses less on American history and more on biography of the personal kind. Topdog/Underdog is the sort of play where nothing seems to happen for long stretches of time: the brothers banter and recollect, recounting their abandonment by their parents and their ongoing struggles with the opposite sex. (Lincoln is separated from his wife; Booth wants to rekindle the flame with an old lover.) They argue about the confidence game of three-card monte, at which Lincoln was a master before going straight.

Yet these conversations gradually reveal the toxic dynamic that propels the work toward its inevitable, tragic end. I won’t spoil it here, but let’s just say the pair have the names they have for a reason. And to invoke Chekhov: if you brandish a gun within the first five minutes of a play, you better be prepared to use it.

Tension wanted

Robinson’s production, however, lacks the essential tension necessary to navigate the explosive shifts in mood that make Topdog/Underdog so entertaining and shocking. Part of that comes down to the physical staging: David P. Gordon’s scenic design feels too open and airy, often leaving the brothers on opposite ends of the stage when they should be on top of each other. J. Dominic Chacon’s lighting is too consistently bright, robbing the action of its mystery and the setting of any sense of dinginess. Ambient noise would go a long way to establish the griminess of the neighborhood where they reside, but Caroline Eng’s sound design largely avoids it.

More troubling, though, is the impulse to play the material as slapstick comedy rather than psychological drama. At times it feels like you’re watching The Odd Couple. This is due in part to miscasting: the talented Davis proves far too likeable and agreeable for the misanthropic and intimidating Booth. It’s hard to picture him as a ruthless card shark. McGriff plays one comedic beat all night, accompanied by one repeated loose-limbed gesture. Together, they don’t suggest a powder keg as much as a coffee klatsch.

Topdog/Underdog remains a brilliant, unsettling play. It deserves a production that matches its power. Here, it ends up being one long con.

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