Topdog/Underdog

There’s a saying that goes something like this: I against my brother, and I and my brother against the world. That’s also a fair, if laconic, synopsis of Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer-winning play, the first ever won by an African-American woman. Topdog takes on issues of race, masculinity, sibling rivalry, and devastated family structures in furious and acidly witty dialogue that flows out in its own peculiar rhythm, like a jazz riff. In fact, Parks takes care to turn not merely the dialogue, but the entire story structure off-kilter. The two brothers of the story, ominously named Lincoln and Booth, are both down on their luck and desperate to advance their lives. That they have no one but each other might be more harmful than healthy. Older brother Lincoln has already walked away from his former life as a street-hustling card swindler. Instead, he’s taken a humiliating job in a sideshow impersonating his namesake president, complete with stovepipe hate and white makeup, so that carnivalgoers can pretend to assassinate him. But Booth is no good at anything but shoplifting, and desperately wants Lincoln to teach him how to deal three-card monte. Things get weirder from there. Mixed Blood’s production is a collaboration with Washington, D.C.’s Studio Theater, starring actors Thomas Jones and Jahi Kearse, who bring their Capitol version of the Broadway play to Minnesota.
Mixed Blood, 1501 S. 4th St.,
(612) 338-6131, www.mixedblood.com