A new revival of Suzan-Lori Parks' 'Topdog/Underdog' misses the beat at Pasadena Playhouse

A caller revival of Suzan-Lori Parks’ “Topdog/Underdog,” adjacent 1 arsenic tepid arsenic the 1 astatine Pasadena Playhouse, provides an accidental to bespeak connected the work’s strange, eventful history.

The play transformed the vocation of a playwright who, until that time, had been an Obie-decorated darling of New York’s downtown avant-garde. A writer of experimental collages connected the manifold quality of the Black experience, Parks contended successful a benignant usher to her tricky, unorthodox aboriginal enactment that “language is simply a carnal act.”

And indeed, words successful her plays person the unit of whirling objects. From the start, her innovative reasoning connected signifier connected her much to the theatrical traditions of Adrienne Kennedy and Richard Foreman than those of Lorraine Hansberry and August Wilson.

Quite unexpectedly, “Topdog/Underdog” catapulted Parks to Broadway. When the play won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize, she became the archetypal Black pistillate to person the grant for drama. The glory hasn’t diminished successful the intervening years. In 2018, a sheet of New York Times critics, surveying the large works of American play since Tony Kushner’s “Angels successful America,” ranked “Topdog/Underdog” No. 1 connected a database of 25 plays.

An absorbing footnote to this illustrious past is that erstwhile the play had its premiere astatine New York’s Public Theater successful 2001, determination was large consternation successful the downtown theatre assemblage that yet different Bob Dylan was going electric. How situation Parks dabble successful discernible narrative! In the much rarefied reaches of this coterie world, the mainstream clasp of “Topdog/Underdog” implied selling out.

What was possibly astir ironic astir this critique was that there’s specified a wide throughline betwixt “Topdog/Underdog” and its predecessors. The conception of a Black antheral impersonating Abraham Lincoln successful an arcade inviting customers to instrumentality a changeable astatine the president a la John Wilkes Booth — an audacious conceit of “Topdog/Underdog” — was tried retired by Parks successful “The America Play.”

Unquestionably, “Topdog/Underdog” has a much classical operation than Parks’ enactment up to that point. The play revolves astir 2 modern-day brothers, Booth and Lincoln, whose destiny whitethorn beryllium determined by the names their profoundly neglectful parents saddled them with arsenic a gag — a gag with an archetypal punchline.

But the play’s ferocious verbal euphony — the existent motor of the play — unmistakably bears the linguistic signature of Parks’ adventurous aboriginal plays, specified arsenic “Imperceptible Mutabilities successful the Third Kingdom” and “The Death of the Last Black Man successful the Whole Entire World.”

George C. Wolfe, who directed the off-Broadway and Broadway premieres of “Topdog/Underdog,” was an perfect interpreter astatine this signifier of Parks’ career. A showman who, arsenic the writer of “The Colored Museum,” was afloat astatine location successful much abstract realms of playwriting, helium knew however to equilibrium extremist theatricality with much accepted storytelling panache.

The enduring vibrancy of “Topdog/Underdog” was evident to maine successful a 2012 South Coast Repertory revival that whitethorn not person retained the play’s syncopated rhythms but recovered capable jazz successful the quality dynamics to clasp america nether Parks’ spell. A critically heralded 2022 Broadway revival directed by Kenny Leon near small uncertainty astir the play’s lasting arsenic a 21st period classic.

All of this brings maine to the latest production, directed by Gregg T. Daniel, astatine Pasadena Playhouse. If I had ne'er seen the play before, I mightiness beryllium questioning its pedigree. It’s a acquisition successful however adjacent subtle miscalculations successful casting and directing tin distort one’s content of a time-tested work.

I callback a starry revival of “A Doll’s House” galore years agone that made maine privation to disregard Ibsen’s play arsenic creakily obsolete. But past not agelong after, I saw the astonishing 1997 Broadway production, directed by Anthony Page and starring a blazing Janet McTeer, that compelled maine to reverse people and state Ibsen’s play an evergreen wonder.

Brandon Gill, left, and Brandon Micheal Hall successful a country from “Topdog/Underdog,” directed by Gregg T. Daniel.

(Jeff Lorch)

What went incorrect astatine Pasadena Playhouse? Not the glorious carnal production, which creates a theatrical satellite unto its ain successful a mode evocative of an American Beckett. Tesshi Nakagawa’s basement flat acceptable made maine ideate an “Endgame” relocated to municipality slum housing.

The superb lighting decorator Jared A. Sayeg, who incidentally worked connected Alan Mandell’s 2016 accumulation of “Endgame” astatine the Kirk Douglas Theatre, endows the scenic representation with a painterly aura. The ocular precision lifts america into a heightened aesthetic realm beyond realism.

The mounting simultaneously situates the play successful a affluent theatrical history. If Athol Fugard’s “Blood Knot” is simply a forerunner of Parks’ creation, past Tarell Alvin McCraney’s “The Brothers Size” is a nonstop descendant.

But the accumulation doesn’t unrecorded up to its three-dimensional canvas. Brandon Gill arsenic Booth and Brandon Micheal Hall arsenic Lincoln are talents of striking sensitivity. They bring a caller generational sensibility to their characters, embodying a millennial mentation of Booth and Lincoln, a milder tack than the Gen X illustration of Jeffrey Wright and Mos Def, who starred successful the Broadway premiere. (Wright played other Don Cheadle’s Booth successful the play’s off-Broadway motorboat astatine the Public Theater.)

The actors tune into the traumatic past of the brothers but astatine the disbursal of the play’s theatricality. Abandoned astatine a young property by their parents, Booth and Lincoln are inactive stuck successful endurance mode. Their hopeless surviving conditions — nary bath successful the portion and lone 1 furniture — are a changeless reminder of their breached upbringing. But they enactment retired their past much than they brood implicit it.

The flat belongs to Booth, who doesn’t enactment and seems incapable of holding down a job. He’s practicing his slick three-card monte moves and patter, wanting to prime up his brother’s aged enactment of work. Lincoln, who has been successful limbo since his woman dumped him, is trying to bent connected to his caller occupation arsenic a Lincoln impersonator astatine the arcade.

Pretending to get changeable mightiness not look similar a measurement up successful employment, but Lincoln is relieved to beryllium disconnected the streets. Booth glamorizes the hustle, but Lincoln lived the dangers. He besides appreciates being paid to beryllium astir each time with his unsettled thoughts. He needs clip to enactment himself backmost together, but clip is simply a luxury these brothers person ne'er been capable to afford.

Gill underplays Booth’s intelligence challenges, possibly forestalling a diagnosis that could marque it easier for america to region ourselves from the character. But there’s a tentativeness to the portrayal, a watering down of the fraternal volatility that yet makes Booth truthful dangerous.

Hall’s Lincoln wears a sweater successful the 2nd enactment that looks similar it came from Saks Fifth Avenue. It’s the 1 noticeable plan misstep successful Daniel’s production, but it reflects the character’s tendency to go portion of a satellite that has ever seemed acceptable to forsake him.

His three-card monte skills are storied successful the neighborhood, but he’s determined to proceed down the consecutive and narrow. Lincoln’s trajectory is the reflector representation of Booth’s, but yet their paths tragically converge.

The psychology, however, needs to beryllium much boldly theatricalized, and for Parks that inevitably means verbalized. These characters are fluent successful three-card monte rap, nary cards required. The crippled is motored by their deft, defiant mouths.

But Daniel doesn’t gully from these good actors the standard of show that Parks’ play demands. His restrained absorption keeps the brothers successful cheque and underpowered. Instead of a modern reworking of the Cain and Abel story, this revival offers thing much subdued — a TV movie pleading for sympathy.