Theater: “Topdog/Underdog” by Suzan-Lori Parks

In 2001, Suzan-Lori Parks wrote a play about two brothers named Lincoln and Booth who as dealer and “shill” ran a three-card-monte operation in New York City. For those who may not know, TCM was a game designed to hoodwink tourists on street corners in Times Square before it was Disney-fied. The play was called “Top Dog/Underdog,” it started Jeffrey Wright and Mos Def as the brothers, and it went on to win the Pulitzer Prize.

One wonders if a revival of TD/UD 21 years later would have the same dramatic wallop as the original production, or if the cast would leave the same indelible mark on the theatergoer. The answer, I am happy to report, is a resounding…YES.

Corey Hawkins (who was in the original cast of “Six Degrees of Separation”) brings a comic, almost Chaplin-esque sensibility to the role of Lincoln or “Link.” He’s given up his life as a three-card monte shark in favor of a job (“with benefits” as he puts it), where he must dress up as Abraham Lincoln at a local tourist attraction and daily reenact the president’s assassination.

Link has insinuated himself into the shabby studio apartment of his antic younger brother Booth (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II)—an apartment with no hot water or private bathroom. Booth is the sort of fellow who’s never had a job (most of what he owns, he’s “boosted” or shoplifted) nor has he had much of a love life. Booth’s aspiration is to be a fully fledged three-card monte dealer like Link; he practices at home but his key frustration is realizing he will never match his brother’s dexterity or verbal acuity at the game. This, as they say, will cause Booth to go through a few things.

There have been other Great American brother dramas throughout the years (“Of Mice and Men” and “True West” come to mind) but perhaps none as simultaneously funny, sad and timeless as TD/UD. The only bad thing about this marvelous play is that it’s closing soon. Get thee to Telecharge or TodayTix; they accept all cards, none of the three-card-monte variety