In this Pulitzer prize winner, playwright Suzan-Lori Parks has woven a tight two character play that talks about poverty, race, self-awareness, grief, family, mental health, alcoholism, and the humanity of life or the life of humanity. We have two black adult brothers sharing a single room tenement without running water and just one bed and a recliner. Lincoln, the eldest, is crashing at his brother’s place after being kicked out by his wife. Booth holds it over Lincoln that he has the apartment despite Lincoln being the only one of the pair with an income.
About midway through Topdog/Underdog, Lincoln relates to Booth that their father had told him at one time that he named them Lincoln and Booth as a joke. I think that Suzan-Lori Parks named them as such as an omen.
Director Gavid Dillon Lawrence has done a marvelous job with a tough play to stage. Despite a single room set, the two characters roil through a number of moods and back. So finding the right actors, detecting the right attitudes for each act, and keeping the relationships feeling real is a major accomplishment. Lawrence’s choice in Anthony Fleming III as Lincoln and Dimonte Henning as Booth, I mean Three Card (later), is absolutely perfect. And there is never a doubt that these two are brothers with all of their feelings of family, brotherhood, competition, and legacy.
Anthony Fleming III is an imposing Lincoln as Lincoln the character and as Lincoln the historical figure. So to catch you up, Lincoln the character was a street hustler famous for his three card monte game. But he gave it up to go straight. But the straight job he found was as an Abe Lincoln impersonator at a boardwalk arcade…where customers pay a small fee to use a cap gun to assassinate him. Depending on the moment, Fleming gives us a resigned man who is determined to stay off the street so accepts the irony and boredom in the job. But Fleming also can bring out the humor that the situation provides as well in a very easy entertaining motion. After all, chuckle, it is a sit down job. But then again, Fleming as easily displays some anger or disgust at where he finds himself today.
Booth is the younger brother and a ne’er do well who looks up to his brother’s success at three card monte. He is forever practicing the moves and even renames himself, Three Card, to adopt his new role. Dimonte Henning brings a rabid energy to the role, with a sense of entitlement(?) but a lack of self-awareness. Henning also gives us a real sense of anger and disappointment when Lincoln refuses (initially) to help him master the game. Later Henning brings out Booth’s obsession with his ‘girlfriend’ Grace and his lack of sense around the relationship. Henning can easily swing the Grace mood from doubt to braggadocio in a moment…and he can’t help himself when he can dig under Lincoln’s skin about how his wife came to find solace in Booth’s bed.
This is not a healthy relationship and both Fleming and Henning exhibit tendencies of love and family and then flip instantly to bullying but they make it all work until: Lincoln loses his job to a wax dummy. And Fleming changes to a Lincoln giddy with success as he’s returned to three card monte cons and then adds on an incredibly persistent mean streak with Booth as the economic dynamic has shifted.
Fleming and Henning are the key here. They both have fully embodied their characters and have found a way to display all of the dynamics inherent in sibling relationships while also trying to deal with the pressures of living in the real world outside their door. And they bond over medicine (alcohol) but get separated by family history.
The Milwaukee Chamber Theatre presents Topdog/Underdog until May 11, 2025 at the Broadway Theatre Center, 158 N. Broadway, Milwaukee.
For more information! For Tickets! Run time: approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes, with one intermission.
