TopDog/Underdog is a Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Suzan-Lori Parks about two African American brothers, Lincoln and Booth, abandoned in youth and struggling with poverty, racism, and their own identities. The darkly comedic drama explores their volatile relationship, as one brother works as a Lincoln impersonator while the other tries to master three-card monte.
Playing at the ArtsWest non-profit performing arts theater in West Seattle, known for producing thought-provoking theater in an intimate, 149-seat space. It aims to use live theater as a tool for change, often featuring BIPOC playwrights, and also hosts contemporary art exhibitions that run concurrently with its mainstage shows.
Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks was born in Fort Knox, Kentucky. She grew up with two siblings in a military family. Parks was raised in West Germany, where her father, a career officer in the United States Army, was stationed. The experience showed her “what it feels like to be neither white nor black, but simply foreign”.
As I sat there, very mesmerized and fully enthralled in what I was watching, I realized that I was probably watching it with different lenses than 150s or so other people sitting in the audience. This play in fact was everything it was described to be in the synopsis and yet I saw it through different lenses, it wasn’t foreign to me. Addiction is an equal opportunity destroyer.
I was thinking of other names that I might have named this powerful theatrical endeavor. I might have named it “Adverse Childhood Experiences” or a really snappy title like “If Left Untreated” but most simply put I just would’ve named it. “HURT PEOPLE HURT PEOPLE”
Alcoholism, Sex Addiction, Gambling Addiction, Childhood Abuse, Neglect and Chronic Abandonment just for starters. All connected through a strong dose of impulse control disorder coupled with an intense attachment disorder. These two adult children of dysfunction never stood a chance of not becoming a statistic. They were never going to be able to lastingly outrun their past. They were never going to get out of this world unscathed.
Hopes and dreams never materialized only adding to an ever-present sense of worthlessness attached to a core belief that “If You Really Knew Me, You Wouldn’t Love Me”. Rules and laws are made for lovable people, unlovable people live by other means.
Both characters in their own way are trying to find a way out of the desperation and depression that is a signature of their life. They are funny and smart and articulate, and even somewhat introspective in the vernacular of the street. They both have redeeming qualities, but not enough to truly find a way out.
Against the backstop of systemic racism and a culture that deemed them both as invisible and disposable, the cards are stacked, no different than the results of the three card Monty scam game that is in the center of the theme.
The show definitely has rented space in my head and my heart. I couldn’t help wonder what the outcome of each of their lives would be if only they had gotten the necessary assistance to maximize their life journey. It left me with a lot of What Ifs..
And as I always say at the end of the blogs, misery is optional and don’t leave before the miracle.
NO MORE SECRETS 