By Martin F. Kohn
Ann Arbor's Blackbird Theatre presents "Topdog/ Underdog" through Nov. 20. Photo: Barton Bund
In "Topdog/Underdog" the classic street-corner con game three-card monte stands as a metaphor for the game of life; its characters, a pair of African-American brothers, are the losers and, as in the best of hustles, they never realize that they're the marks.
The two battered souls live together in a shabby room that would be called a cold-water flat if it had running water (the bathroom is down the hall). The odds have been stacked against them since the day they were born: One is named Lincoln, the other Booth, their father's idea of a joke. Simultaneously profound and profane, Suzan-Lori Parks' Pulitzer Prize-winning 2001 play abounds with ironies.
The one thing Lincoln excels at – dealing three-card monte – he refuses to do. Instead, he works at an arcade dressed as Abraham Lincoln sitting in a chair while customers "shoot" him with a cap gun. Working for little pay, playing Lincoln enslaves him. And he's far from honest.
Booth, a schemer and dreamer with little understanding of the way things really are, wants to replace Lincoln as a three-card monte master. He has an on-again, off-again girlfriend (mostly off) named Grace; grace is one thing his life is devoid of.
Add to this the tempo of Parks' dialogue, rapid-fire one moment, menacingly easygoing the next, and it's a lot to make credible. Director Lynch Travis and his two actors, Ruell Black (Booth) and Brian Marable (Lincoln), mine the tension and, yes, the humor, well. Black stumbled on a few lines on opening night, but these are rough edges that can be smoothed out quickly.
In the Blackbird Theatre's cozy storefront space, currently configured for just 30 seats, the audience has an inescapable feeling of eavesdropping on people one would never encounter in regular life. This sense of the extraordinary gives the production – this play performed by these people in this space – solid appeal.
With any live performance (or sporting event) one of the great charms is choosing what you want to look at, and in a theater this small the possibilities actually increase. In the three-card monte scenes you can observe the actors' faces, or their hands or, because everyone is close enough, you can concentrate on the cards and try to follow the winner.
The card game may be for suckers but Blackbird Theatre's "Topdog/Underdog" most certainly is not.
REVIEW:
'Topdog/Underdog'
Blackbird Theatre, 325 Braun Ct., Ann Arbor. Thursday-Sunday through Nov. 20. $15-$25. 734-332-3848. http://www.blackbirdtheatre.org
