{"id":8121,"date":"2019-08-13T06:34:52","date_gmt":"2019-08-13T10:34:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8121"},"modified":"2019-08-21T08:21:18","modified_gmt":"2019-08-21T12:21:18","slug":"topdog-underdog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8121","title":{"rendered":"Topdog\/Underdog"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The final production of the 2019\nseason at Princeton Summer\nTheater<\/a> is Suzan-Lori Parks<\/a>\u2019s 2002\nPulitzer Prize winning Top Dog\/Underdog, directed by Lori\nElizabeth Parquet<\/a>. The show premiered August 8 and runs through August 18\nat Princeton University\u2019s Hamilton Murray Theater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sibling rivalry that boils over\ninto violence is as old as Cain and Abel, with the line between love and hate\never-shifting. African American brothers Booth (Travis Raeburn) and Lincoln (Nathaniel J. Ryan<\/a>), five years\nolder, have an uneasy relationship made more acute by their dwindling life\nprospects. Despite Booth\u2019s determination to change his name to Three-Card, the\nbrothers seem constrained by the names their father chose for them as a cruel\njoke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Booth has a one-room apartment and\na girlfriend whom we never see (and who may be apocryphal); Lincoln has come to\nlive with him after his wife threw him out, and Booth would like to get rid of\nhim too, but Lincoln has a job and income, even if paltry. In a tangle of\nsymbolism, he works in a carnival, in whiteface and dressed up as Abraham\nLincoln. People pay to come into his booth and shoot him with a gun filled with\nblanks. They carnival hired him because they can pay him less, but even that\nmeager income is threatened, because management plans to replace him with a wax\ndummy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the old days, Lincoln made a\ngood living fleecing tourists with the Three-card Monte con, but initially\nrefuses to take up the cards again. Booth would like to develop a Three-card Monte\nracket of his own. In the opening scene, he\u2019s practicing his card-handling\nskills and patter at the front of the stage, when his brother enters, in full\nLincoln regalia. Startled by Lincoln\u2019s entrance, Booth pulls his gun, then lies\nabout what he was doing. Playing solitaire, he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the course of the play,\nmuch comes out about the brothers\u2019 reaction to being abandoned by their parents\nwhen they were 16 and 11 and their uneasy relationship in the ensuing twenty\nyears or so. Which of them is the top dog and which the underdog shifts back\nand forth many times. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raeburn gives an energetic\nperformance as Booth, ever the kid brother, teasing and bouncing to keep\nLincoln\u2019s attention. Much of the comedy in the production comes from his\nportrayal. Ryan starts out as the ghostly Lincoln, morose and beaten down not\njust by his bizarre job but the even more awful prospect that he may lose it.\nHe resists Booth\u2019s importuning to go back to his Three-card Monte days, and\nfinally, alone in the apartment, really comes to life when he takes up the\ncards again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rakesh Potluri produced the set\n(the vividly floral wallcoverings were inspired by the work of artist Kehinde\nWiley, who created the portrait of Barack Obama at the National Portrait\nGallery). Music from the hip-hop duo Outkast\u2019s 1998 album Aquemini<\/em>, which like the play is thematically influenced by\ndifferences between the two principals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Princeton Summer Theater\nproductions are staged in Hamilton Murray Theater on the university campus,\neasily reached from New York by car or train. Take New Jersey Transit to the\nPrinceton Junction station, then the shuttle train into Princeton. The shuttle\nends a short walk from the theater, which is also walking distance from\nnumerous restaurants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For tickets, call the box office at\n732-997-0205 or visit the ticket office online<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The final production of the 2019 season at Princeton Summer Theater is Suzan-Lori Parks\u2019s 2002 Pulitzer Prize winning Top Dog\/Underdog, directed by Lori Elizabeth Parquet. The show premiered August 8 and runs through August 18 at Princeton University\u2019s Hamilton Murray … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Topdog\/Underdog - Two brothers' rivalries intensify as their future becomes more challenging. ","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[61,1288,366,104,147],"tags":[1587,203,1623],"class_list":["post-8121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-character","category-culture","category-drama","category-the-morgue","category-theater","tag-princeton-summer-theater","tag-pulitzer-prize","tag-suzan-lori-parks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/TopDog-UnderDog.jpg?fit=1152%2C768&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-26Z","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8121"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8123,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8121\/revisions\/8123"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}