As I like to say, there is theatre and then there is theatre! Out at The Theatre Centre, a cavernous space on Queen Street West, an utterly astounding example of the latter is taking place with Topdog/Underdog, playing until Dec. 4.
There are many things that make this play intriguing, economics being one of them. This Pulitzer Prize winning work by one of the United States’ most exciting dramatists, Suzan-Lori Parks, was first presented at the Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake this past summer, where you would have had to shell out $60 or more for tickets; here in Toronto, the cost is as little as one-third of that.
The director, Philip Akin, is the same fine actor and artistic director of our city’s important Obsidian Theatre Company (dedicated to works of people of colour). The two stars — the utterly brilliant Kevin Hanchard and Nigel Shawn Williams — hail from there as well. I have long enjoyed the acting of the former in several of Toronto’s theatres, and the latter starred as the pastor/husband in the Shaw’s wonderful production of Bernard Shaw’s Candida last summer.
Shows limited to one or two characters often feel limited emotionally or physically, but the powerful presentation of Red at Canadian Stage right now, as well as Topdog, prove how great two-handers can be.
Topdog/Underdog had its debut off-Broadway in late 2001, exactly a decade ago, starring two of the top American performers of both stage and screen, Don Cheadle and Jeffrey Wright. It stunned critics, and later, the Pulitzer panel, when it moved to Broadway a half-year later. It is a wildly original, daring and challenging play. It is also a crude and vulgar play (and therefore, not for every taste; be warned). But what it says about racism, history and human relationships is more profound than a dozen scholarly books. When is the last time you’ve sat before a live production with your mouth open and ears flapping, watching two gifted actors create jazz poetry with their perfectly-spoken (and often shouted) words? If the great Northtrop Frye, with whom I studied for years, had lived to see this play, I think he would have been mumbling “wow” under his breath.
Two brothers, cruelly named Lincoln and Booth by their angry, neglectful parents, argue back and forth about their upbringing, abandonment, jobs, girlfriends, poverty and gambling over two acts, each about an hour in length. Sounds simple, but as a re-enactment of the Cain and Abel story from the Bible, it is devastating. And as directed by Akin and acted by Hanchard and Williams, it is a revelation.
The play takes place on a set that reflects the coming apart of society and human relationships: in a run-down boarding house. There, the parquet floor is coming apart in a thousand loose pieces, just like the characters’ lives. It opens with the younger brother Booth (Hanchard) practicing his con game of Three Card Monte, acting out his corrupt art (“Set up the game at another corner! The red card is the winner, the black card is the loser!” — there is striking symbolism for you).
Then, in comes Lincoln — his older brother — in white face, since his present job involves playing the doomed American president at an arcade, with a false black beard and stove pipe hat, as if attending the Ford Theatre at the end of his life. Two brothers, both severely damaged by their upbringing and filled with both love and rage, must somehow reenact the assassination of the man who freed the slaves, both verbally and, eventually, physically, just as Williams’ character Lincoln must be shot every night as part of an ugly exhibit, for eternity.
Along the way, Williams’ Lincoln tunes up his guitar and sings his own blues songs. The first act alone had me dizzy with excitement and awe. I could go on for pages, but just let me beg you: see this play. Be shaken by the West End of London-level acting by these two amazing artists.
Topdog/Underdog may be predictable at times, as we all know how Lincoln and Booth, and before them, Cain and Abel, end up. But I have rarely, if ever, seen finer performances and a better production. For little more than you’d pay for a 3-D movie, you will experience a rare evening of live theatre. And you don’t have to suffer that two-hour drive down to Niagara-on-the-Lake, either.
Topdog/Underdog, The Theatre Centre, runs until Dec 4.