Topdog/Underdog

Synopsis

Topdog/Underdog tells the story of two brothers, Lincoln and Booth. Their names, given to them as a joke, foretell a lifetime of sibling rivalry and resentment. Haunted by the past and their obsession with the street con Three Card Monte, the brothers are forced to confront the shattering reality of their future.

Our Review:

12 August 2003

Suzan-Lori Parks' 2002 Pulitzer Prize-winning play may take place in the 'here' and 'now' of a nameless American city, but it could easily be set in Martin McDonagh's Ireland, in a small village where eccentricities come as standard and everyone's family is more than a little fucked up.

Certainly, Parks' pair of brothers - the topdog and underdog of the title, Lincoln and Booth, so named after the 16th American president and his assassin as their father's idea of a joke - would feel quite at home in Leenane or Inishmaan, though their addictive 3-card monte street con may not bear such lucrative returns in rural surrounds.

Abandoned by first their father and then their mother, the brothers have been fending for themselves since they were teenagers. Now as world-weary adults, both are living in Booth's single room in a dilapidated boarding house (Riccardo Hernandez's suitably and depressingly grubby design, lit in interrogation-style silhouettes by Scott Zielinski), ...

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Latest User Review

USER: Whatsonstage.com (195.102.142.238) - 27 August 2003:

Superb acting. Great set and lighting. ...

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