The tension of fraternity, with all its trimmings, informs Suzan-Lori Parks’ insightful play, “Topdog/Underdog,” at Trenton’s Passage Theatre through Sunday, March 9.
Parks gets provocative right away by naming her characters Lincoln and Booth, who display all the traits one might associate with brothers — love, support, cooperation, and a shared past on the positive side, jealousy, petty squabbles, toleration or dismissal of unattractive traits, and outright sibling rivalry on the negative.
Lincoln is forced by circumstances to move into Booth’s one-room tenement digs, with bath and toilet amenities down the hall, an arrangement that approximates the way they lived as children, Linc older by five years, in a family home that verged on becoming middle class but was filled with strictness, inconsistency, and desertion. Both of their parents abandon the boys, their mother first, for separate lives that dissolve any semblance of security or shelter.
Linc is age 16 and Booth age 11 when find they themselves on their own, depending on each other to make it through to adulthood, which is well established when we meet them in “Topdog/Underdog.”
Parks is shrewd. She likes the joke that is simultaneously subtle and blatant, such as the characters’ names, which are explained in the text as their father’s sardonic way of keeping his sons at odds and striving to outdo each other.
Lincoln’s job is another bit of humor with a lump in its throat. He works at a seaside arcade, dressed as Abraham Lincoln and billed as “Honest Abe,” where the “fun” is customers sneaking up behind his Memorial-inspired chair and shooting him in the temple, just as John Wilkes Booth did to the actual Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in 1865. One of Parks’ funnier gambits is having Linc practice ways he can vary his arcade death scenes to make the “assassination” more interesting for him and the customer.
Parks derives “Topdog’s” drama from the various conflicts and moments of camaraderie between Linc and Booth, the trouble usually involving money or some breathing space so Booth can entertain a female guest, peace coming when the guys are reminiscing until one brother complains his sibling is not remembering events accurately or, at least, in the same way he recalls and responds to it.
The depth of Parks’ play comes from the differences the brothers show in attitude, ambition, commitment, and the way to go about their business.
Though they are both down and out when we meet them, subsisting on Linc’s constantly threatened pittance of a salary from the arcade and sheltering in Booth’s pitiful but cheaply available room, the engaging part of Parks’ script and marcus d. harvey’s (lower case his preference) direction at Passage, is the way the brothers view the world and plan for their futures.
Any sibling and certainly every parent knows that no two children are alike, even when the offspring get along and maintain a cordial relationship.
Linc and Booth know how to get along and how to recover when some disagreement gets testy, but they don’t view or approach life in the same way.
At Passage, harvey, and actors Steven St. Pierre (Lincoln) and Anthony Vaughn Merchant (Booth) accentuate the behaviors and points of view that show that although the brothers are close from being bonded by hard experience, they are not fundamentally the same and do not have the same grasp on skill or how to achieve success in life.
Linc scuffles for a humiliating living and bunks chez Booth because his wife threw him out of their apartment, but he has standards and a sense of excellence. Before he opted to be legitimate like Honest Abe, he was one of the top three-card monte dealers on the Trenton streets. Parks has both and him and Booth doing the rhythmic non-stop patter than makes the monte hustle work.
The difference is Linc has honed himself into a pro who knows every aspect of his fraud and can win any contest between him and his mark at will.
Whether demoralizing or requiring great skill, Linc learns his craft and can practice it with aplomb. He gave up curbside swindling for his own reasons, but he was a champ when he did it. Just as he is conscientious enough to devise new ways to entertain his arcade customers. His attitude toward finding a job has become one of whatever gives him shelter and the wherewithal to sustain himself on Chinese take-out.
Linc figures things out.
Booth makes up his mind to do something, or want to do it, and thinks he figured it out.
There’s the rub that makes the brothers individual. There’s the difference that makes one a topdog, or potential topdog, and the other a perpetual underdog.
Linc and Booth represent the striver vs. the person who wants everything before nothing, who eschews excellent, training, knowing his game, or taking pride in it.
The only thing Booth does well is shoplift, or “boost,” as Parks has him put it. One of the funniest, most telling sequences of harvey’s production is watching Anthony Vaughn Merchant divest himself of two full suits of clothing Booth obtained from some unsuspecting shop without having to break a sweat. Another scene in which Booth shows his skill at acquiring tableware, and even a table, is equally hilarious.
While Booth seems to have a preternatural gift for theft, he thinks everything else should come just as easy.
Linc, in his hustling heyday, allowed Booth to tag along and even play a role in his game. Booth, from watching his brother and other successful monte hustlers, thinks he has the moves and the patter down. He is ready to relinquish unemployment and maybe five-finger discounts by setting up his monte table and fleecing gullible Trentonians.
Booth thinks everything should be a snap, but he doesn’t have Linc’s penchant for getting things right.
Even his half of their room shows Booth to be the underdog. Linc’s space is sparse but neat and orderly. Booth’s looks like a cyclone hit it. Even when he’s gussying up his corner for a special date, he only pays attention to immediate needs like smartly settling a table and filching the right outfit but leaves his bed unmade, throws what he’s not wearing on the bed, and comes across as an incorrigible slob.
Even when he dons the luxurious bathrobe he stole, Booth doesn’t smooth out the collar so he’ll look posh and elegant, as Linc would. He wears it without style or attention to details Merchant shows you he doesn’t even know require attention.
Aside from dialogue, at which both actors are excellent, St. Pierre and Merchant live in their characters’ skin.
Merchant’s Booth is sudden and sneaky is his actions. He’s always in motion, always antsily alive and working on hustle or a strut, etc. that might get him attention from women.
He’s manic and impatient. Merchant’s Booth doesn’t want to learn and perfect. He wants to go out and mirror Linc’s success at monte, only without mastering his craft the way his brother does.
Merchant endows Booth with pure emotion. He’s a firecracker with everything packed in tight, waited to be ignited and explode with grandness.
The problem is Booth doesn’t have faith or belief in training.
So, he is not always able to do what he pretends confidence to handle.
Such as win infallibly in three-card monte.
Merchant is a whirlwind of nervous tension, purpose, and extreme response to adversity on the Passage stage. You know his Booth is always one disappointment away from throwing caution or prudence to the wind. It’s exciting to watch Merchant deal with Booth’s frustrated energy.
Whatever Linc feels, even when he’s meeting Booth’s fire with fire, Steven St. Pierre endows him with a quiet, stoic dignity.
Linc wants to teach Booth his skills. He wants his little brother to succeed, but no matter what Linc says or tries to impart, Booth knows it already. Instead of heeding, he boasts he can already do it better.
St. Pierre carries weight and responsibility Linc feels in his calm but defeated expression and burdened shoulders. His performance is as subtle and effective as Parks’ writing. It’s also fun to see him bring Linc to fullest life playing three-card monte.
Anthony Wiegand designs Booth’s apartment to be as bleak and sad as it is. Wiegand is also clever at providing the trappings that make Booth’s dump pass for a home. Then, there’s the chinks in the plaster and a door that opens that makes one think Booth and Linc are trapped in their house.
Damien Figueras’ sound design and projections provide a sense of place. Tiffany Bacon dresses her characters well, especially Linc. Daniel Taylor creates moods with his lighting.
Topdog/Underdog, Passage Theatre, Mill Hill Playhouse, 205 East Front Street, Trenton. Through Sunday, March 9. Thursday and Friday, 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, 2 and 8 p.m.; and Sunday, 3 p.m. Tickets are $33 with additional discounts and meal plans available. www.passagetheatre.org or 609-392-0766.
