Theatre review: Topdog/Underdog, Southbank Theatre

The art and craft of Suzan-Lori Park’s 2001 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Topdog/Underdog, currently being staged by the Melbourne Theatre Company (MTC) at the smaller Lawler theatre at Southbank Theatre, is that although we are shown much of the sleight of hand workings of the magic tricks of drama – it still undoes us at its denouement. The silence of the collective holding of the audience’s breath at the end… shocking. 

When a gun appears in the first act, as theatregoers we know as sure as the sun that it’s going off by the end of the play. Our awareness of this fact is ubiquitous: Chekhov’s gun – a theatre trope, a tool of drama. We have the “what” and the “when”. The rest of the play is the “who”, the “how” and the “why”. 

But first, the beginning. We meet Lincoln and Booth – two brothers, named so by their father, ‘as a joke’. 

Booth is a loveable crim, a petty thief who has a girl, Grace, who he’s trying to woo back and who dreams of perfecting the art of the three-card street hustle. This is a skill that once gave his brother a lucrative living, before he gave it up after a hustle went wrong and his “stick man” ended up dead. Booth wants his brother to teach him, but Lincoln’s put that all behind him. 

Lincoln spends his days dressing up as his namesake, Abraham Lincoln, at a carnival in white face, top hat and tails, so punters can pay to play the role of Abe’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth, and shoot him. Every day, he is killed and killed again. 

For all the flags furiously waving, pointing to how this play must end, the first act feels so far away from where it’s going to get to, it’s almost unbelievable, reminding me of Marsha Norman’s (also Pulitzer Prize-winning) drama, ‘night, Mother. Both plays are about complex familial relationships, both foretell their conclusion and both use the power of humour, witty dialogue and our willingness to accept a performance of positivity as proof that all is peachy.   

Despite the older-brother, younger-brother dynamics of rivalry and ribbing, Lincoln and Booth love each other. They live together in Booth’s austere bedsit with its peeling lino floors and grimy walls; they seem to manage their bills and budgeting for booze (“medicine”) equally with the lack of running water.  

First-time director and seasoned MTC actor Bert LaBonté has cast a cracking pair of actors – both making their MTC debuts – for this two-hander: Damon Manns as the world-weary elder brother Lincoln and Ras-Samuel as the energetic, funny and charismatic Booth. 

Booth is instantly likeable as he flits around, faux-boxing, performing pull-ups on his exposed water pipes, pumping himself up and practising his three-card hustle; or as he waits patiently for his love interest to arrive for a romantic dinner, amid his doily-decorated and candlelit home, his crusty, smutty mags kicked out of the way under the bed. We laugh easily with the smart-talking Booth, and Ras-Samuel’s portrayal is pitch-perfect. His is a star surely on the rise.   

Manns as Lincoln is more reserved, a weight seemingly pulling him down, which we come to understand as the brothers’ upbringing and history is revealed. We discover the layers of trauma built up as they’ve learned to navigate the realities of each of their parents leaving them as teenagers and being forced to use their pluck and hustle to work out how to make a life for themselves. Lincoln and Booth are survivors, but beneath the surface lie deep wounds.

The black box of the Lawler Theatre is configured as a thrust stage, the audience surrounding the action on three sides, enabling a closer connection between action and audience. The choice mostly works, although as the second act heated up, this reviewer wanted to be even closer. The thrust of the stage means that a key dramatic scene has to be positioned at the rear of the stage to enable the audience on the three sides to see it. 

Read: Exhibition review: No Vacancy Annual, No Vacancy

As the brothers’ rivalry reared, I wanted to feel their breath and I wanted to see the magic fool me, right in front of my eyes. 

Because this play is so much about magic, sleight of hand – and our complicity in being duped. Both in drama and in that euphemism of capitalism, the “American Dream”.  

Topdog/Underdog is an important play, as fresh and vital as it was when it was written in 2001. It woos you with its wit and charm – in the writing and the star-making performances from MTC newcomers Ras-Samuel and Damon Manns – and it will leave you devastated.

Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Park
Southbank Theatre
Director: Bert LaBonté
Set and Costume Designer: Sophie Woodward
Lighting Designer: Rachel Lee
Composer and Sound Designer: Dan West
Fight Choreographer: Lyndall Grant
Card Consultant: Laurence Boxhall
Accent Coach: Rachel Finley
Voice and Text Coach: Matt Furlani
Stage Manager: Jess Keepence
Assistant Stage Manager (Rehearsals): Finn McLeish
Cast: Damon Manns and Ras-Samuel

Topdog/Underdog will be performed until 21 September 2024.