Topdog/Underdog

Ms. Park's play is one of the best plays I have read in a long time. her character's jump out at you and from the first page you are hooked into their lives. It focuses on the relationship between two bothers named Lincoln and Booth. The play has twists and turns and there is always a sense of danger looming. She develps both the characters and story in a very cleaver way, and uses metaphors for what a black man in today's white America may sometimes feel. As a white women I do not know what those feelings are like, but this play taught me what they may be like. read this play. It says something very important that we all should know.

I'll be brief. This play reads well on the page ... it is intense and in-your-face daring. On stage (done well, as I recently saw it the Oregon Shakespeare Festival) it is breathtaking. Amazing. Unique. Startling. Touching. Unexpectedly real & funny. It won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize and it is obvious why. It is an "African American play" but these brothers could be any ethnicity and it would still pack the same punch. In other words: Don't let reviews talking about "stereotypes" disuade you from experiencing this amazing work for yourself.

In a recent interview, Suzan-Lori Parks said she wrote plays when characters tugged on her sleeve and told her they wanted her to write for them. She went on to say that Topdog/Underdog, which had just been awarded the Pulitzer for drama, came to her as a "gift" in three days of work.After reading this play, I must agree that it's a product of Divine inspiration. Topdog/Underdog gives voice to two brothers, Lincoln and Booth, as they posture and play and explore the dynamics of being the younger and the older, the experienced and the eager, the resigned and the motivated.It's a stunning meditation on race and family and class ... made all the more stunning as it pours forth from two down-and-out, plain-spoken, African-American men, characters Parks herself has been criticized for writing about.What these critics have failed to realize is that by giving voice to these marginalized, unsympathetic characters, she has tapped into the darker, less acceptable side in each of us.It's a beautifully crafted work that deserves a far greater audience.

Although I would highly recommend seeing this show in production (on Broadway now), just reading the play is enough to take anyone on a serious roller-coaster ride. Humorous and tragic, this play just knocked me out. I had already read two others by Ms. Parks (In the Blood and Venus), but this one has more kick, more oomph and requires you to invest yourself in the lives of Lincoln and Booth.