He has a mastery of what it means to be the younger sibling, the underdog, in how he bouncily claws away at his brother’s perceived superiority.
Later on, when they’re alone and talking out loud to themselves, their tales become darker their eyes fade to frightening.Ībdul-Mateen, known by many as Cal Abar on “Watchmen,” is assured and easily charismatic in his hot-tempered Broadway debut.
The audience begins to doubt the truth of their conversations.īooth brags about a girl he’s seeing named Grace and his prowess in bed, and Lincoln tells funny stories from the arcade. Link and Booth, who has decided to go by the name Three-card, mostly rant or boast about their days outside the apartment - even though we never leave it or witness what they’ve been up to. FranklinĮven though her characters - alive with pipe dreams - are star-crossed, Parks finds unexpected zigzags on their path. Lincoln (Hawkins, standing) and Booth (Abdul-Mateen) spend their days in Booth’s grimy studio apartment. The writer’s perspective on her two characters’ lives, and those of the real people they represent, is that doom is inevitable. But in reality they have been set up to fail.
A participant is told by the dealer that if they simply follow the rules and point to the correct card, they’ll strike it rich. In that game lies the overarching point of Parks’ drama. Booth, meanwhile, gets by on shoplifting.īoth of the guys, who are black, are dealers of three-card monte - the street corner gamble where a mark tries to follow one red or black card as it’s rapidly moved around. He works as an Abraham Lincoln impersonator at an arcade, where people shoot at him with a fake pistol. Their dad named them as a history gag and Link has turned his moniker, in a truly messed-up way, into his profession. Corey Hawkins (left) and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II star in “Topdog/Underdog” on Broadway. Crammed into a tiny room, they spar and laugh and spar some more. “Topdog/Underdog” pops from the get-go when Lincoln (Corey Hawkins) moves into his younger brother Booth’s (Abdul-Mateen) shabby digs after getting kicked out by his wife. Still, fear always lurks in this small studio apartment.ĭirector Kenny Leon has helmed a sharp, focused revival of the 2002 drama, with a pair of cracking performances that never let up. All the while, she misdirects with warmth and distracts using humor. And we quickly gather that it won’t be very nice. The writer clues us in over and over again - sometimes subtly, sometimes like a foghorn - on how her play will end. Two hours and 20 minutes, with one intermission.
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