Canadian Stage presents TOPDOG UNDERDOG
In Topdog/Underdog, it is not a coincidence that the main characters are named Lincoln and Booth. Like the true Lincoln and Booth, the characters have a tumultuous relationship with each other and, unlike the real-life Booth and Lincoln, our characters have a true brotherly love for each other – or so they claim.
Well-renowned theatre creators Canadian Stage launched their first production of the 2023/2024 season with Topdog/Underdog, written by Susan-Lori Parks over 20 years ago. It claims to be an exploration of the collision between identity and history, which I could see, but in my opinion, it also falls flat to dig deeply into the hard issues that the brothers face, both individually and together. This is not a fault of The Canadian Stage, because they put together the pieces of the puzzle that is this play beautifully, but that puzzle requires you to essentially draw too many of your own pieces to fill in the picture.
We first meet our characters Booth (Mazin Elsadig) and Lincoln (Sébastien Heins) in Booth’s run-down bachelor apartment, free from any kitchen or running water in the actual unit. Lincoln has moved in after being kicked out by his wife, and is trying to find “Honest work” for himself (which is ironic given her namesake), taking on a less-than-ideal arcade job, where he dresses up like Abraham Lincoln, and gets shot with a fake gun by anyone willing to pay the admission fee. We learn early on that when he accepted the job, he was to be paid less than the white guy who had the job right before him.
Lincoln ran the streets with a crew of people, suckering tourists and other “chumps” in a game card three-card-monte, where the dealer uses misdirection and sleight of hand to trick people into betting money and picking a wrong card from the three presented. Lincoln was good, but Booth wanted to be better. It seems like Lincoln’s degenerate ways is what got him kicked out by his wife, but Booth sees it as an opportunity for a bigger and better life for him and his girlfriend, “amazing” Grace. However throughout the play, Booth tries to prove to himself, Lincoln, and unfortunately, Grace, that he is not to be messed with.
Throughout the play, in what appears to be the course of only a few days, we see the two brothers degrade further and further into lowly versions of who they want to be.
What I appreciated from the moment I walked into the theatre was the set. It was beautifully built to reflect a run-down, dirty, dingy big city apartment, but it also was made to look like a boxing ring. Throughout the play, when a new day began, we would hear the ringing of a ring-side bell. Could this symbolize how when you are a marginalized individual every day is a fight? Or are we to guess who out of the two is going to be the Top Dog that day, and who is going to be the Underdog?
The acting of both Elsadig and Heins was outstanding. They embodied their characters heatedly, allowing for emotion to pour out of them throughout the play. Their comedic timing was also excellent, and given the heavy themes presented in the play, was much needed and appreciated.
The play attempted to begin dissecting big issues having to do with race, masculinity, parental abandonment, power, status, and how for many young black men, that gets resolved through a life of crime. My problem with it however is that a lot of these massive moments were just brushed off. Spoiler alert, about two to three times Booth mentions something shocking to Booth about a secret relationship he had with his wife, and two to three times Lincoln had a quiet moment of upset and moved on VERY quickly to laughing and joking with his brother. It was almost as if Booth just criticized Lincoln on an art project, and not drop bombshells about his former marriage. There were too many instances where a truth bomb was dropped and nothing resolved from it. The characters were written to be too hot and cold, but in a slow burning play like this, it just became confusing. The play also could have been fit easily in a 90 minute time slot, and at times it felt that the playwright just used filler sentences and words to hit a target word-count vs. using that time to make a point. For example, and I know three-card-monte is an important element of the play, but we heard the brothers go through their “routine” fully, several times, and I was beginning to check out when they started demonstrating the game.
Maybe I’m wrong about all that though. Maybe they brush past these heavy moments for a reason, like their upbringing. Maybe they don’t get to the root of their issues because for a lot of people, taking time and energy to “figure it out” is a luxury, and “brushing past stuff” is a true reality. Maybe the playwright attempted to take on too much to be addressed in a very short time. What I do know, however, is that I felt like they danced around a little too much, very rarely hitting the point, and my feelings were validated when my friend who came with me said, “I liked the comedy, but it felt like I watched the same thing in both acts”. This felt more like a snapshot in time more than a deeply flushed out play, but I also have to take into consideration that when it was written over 20 years ago, these types of plays didn’t exist: An attempt at capturing an honest ,raw, emotional snapshot of time between two financially challenged black men trying to figure out their place in the world. Unfortunately for me though, even though the play is acclaimed, I still didn’t feel like I got enough out of it.
However, the last five minutes of the play was gripping, and had me at the edge of my seat. It left me energized and renewed my interest. I walked away with more questions than answers and had me trying to look at elements of the play with a different lens. Maybe the play achieved what it needed to with me: it made me think about the real people in the world who lived or are living this life.
I do believe that one person’s perspective isn’t everything, so I will encourage anyone who has read this far to see this production because as I mentioned earlier, Canadian Stage did a wonderful job in all the elements that they had control of. The production itself was fantastic, but the storyline watered down my personal experience of viewing this play.
Topdog/Underdog is playing until October 15th at canadianstage.com.
[Review by Shan Fernando]