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Steven St. Pierre, left, and Anthony Vaughn Merchant co-star in Passage Theatre Company’s production of “Topdog/Underdog.”
Who has the power? Who has none?
Who’s on top? Who’s on the bottom?
“Who the man? I’m the man now.”
In “Topdog/Underdog,” now being presented by Passage Theatre Company at Mill Hill Playhouse in Trenton, brothers Lincoln and Booth, reduced to jokes by a father who thought it funny to name his two Black sons after a murdered president and his assassin, live a sad sack existence in a squalid boarding room, spending their days trying to one-up each other in a place where even winning is barely an improvement.
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Anthony Vaughn Merchant in “Topdog/Underdog.”
Suzan-Lori Parks’ 2002 Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning play comes to Passage in celebration of Black History Month as the first Broadway script presented in the theater’s 40-year history. The production, under the taut direction of marcus d. harvey, is more than worthy of the wait. As “Link” and Booth toss insults, dream big, and poke and prod each other in rapid-fire dialogue, the claustrophobic claw of their tedious existence does not stray.
The absurdity of their life together is revealed from the start as Lincoln lumbers into their shared decrepit and unkempt room dressed as the 16th president in a greatcoat, black top hat and false beard, with a generous smear of whiteface, carrying a package of Chinese takeout. Just the end of another long day at the arcade working as a Lincoln impersonator while customers shoot blanks at the back of his head and he pretends to die. The humiliation is exhausting, and it shows.
Meanwhile, Booth has made himself comfortable after hauling home his latest stash of stolen goods du jour, an occupation that keeps him going until he can learn how to run a three-card monte game on the street as expertly as Lincoln once did. Booth practices the confidence game’s moves that easily separate unsuspecting tourists and the just plain foolish from their money. He fast-shuffles the cards in a way that is reminiscent of that old Boardwalk amusement ride “The Scramble.” Back and forth and side to side: “Watch me close, watch me close now … Don’t blink. The money’s right there.” But, no, it isn’t. The only winner, ever, in this sleight-of-hand game is the dealer.
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Steven St. Pierre in “Topdog/Underdog.”
And, like this rigged game of chance, there is artifice at every turn throughout the play. Nothing is as it seems. It is both tragedy and comedy, laying bare the scam of life itself. The brothers can’t seem to get out of each other’s way in a room that is more cramped dormitory than home-like. A flimsy wicker partition cannot separate the familial dysfunction that has grown like mold on the brothers. They can’t help but torture each other 24/7. Kudos to the costume and set design teams responsible for the siblings’ unsettling world.
The folly of Lincoln’s lot is both darkly comedic and tormenting. Expertly played with equal parts sadness and resignation by Steven St. Pierre, Link appears dead inside, much like his shooting gallery persona. St. Pierre, who starred in last year’s “Rabbit Summer” at Mile Square Theatre in Hoboken, embraces the duality of Lincoln’s predicament, perfectly capturing the character’s struggle to make peace with his humiliating job at the arcade and avoid returning to the streets where dangers are hidden and can pounce any time. At least at the gallery he can see the players coming up behind and “never feel like they shooting me.”
Booth is more of the world than Lincoln. He wants his older brother to give up the arcade life and return to the street game. Played by Anthony Vaughn Merchant with just the right mix of anticipatory joy and hair-trigger anger, Booth dreams of a loving future with a girlfriend that seems to exist only in the perfect land of his imagination. He is restless and impatient for the family life that he and Lincoln never knew, in contrast to Link’s resignation. Merchant’s adolescent renegade spirit makes the ending so much more devastating.
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Steven St. Pierre, left, and Anthony Vaughn Merchant in “Topdog/Underdog.”
Are we meant to always repeat the script we’re born into? Can Lincoln and Booth change? Are the cards always stacked against us? The questions are just as relevant today as they were nearly 25 years ago when “Topdog/Underdog” premiered at New York’s Public Theater.
Parks set her play in the “here and now,” as a Black playwright knowing all too well that America’s future would more than likely look a lot like America’s past. And not surprisingly, here we are decades later, more lost and divided than ever, still mired in conflict, resentment and retribution. Everyone talking past each other, unable, like Lincoln and Booth, to understand each other’s language, and pain.
Still capable of repeating the sins of the father.
Passage Theatre Company will present “Topdog/Underdog” at Mill Hill Playhouse in Trenton through March 9. Visit passagetheatre.org.
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