TopDog/Underdog, written by Suzan-Lori Parks and Directed by Gregg T. Daniel, stars Brandon Gill and Brandon Micheal Hall and is now playing at the Pasadena Playhouse. Beautiful Black History fact: Suzan Lori Parks is the first African American woman to receive a Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2002 for this play. The show will run from February 26 to March 23, 2025. I had the distinct pleasure and honor of being a part of the show’s first audience for the first preview (2.26). Pasadena Playhouse is one of my favorite theaters in Los Angeles. This historic playhouse will be 100 years old in a few weeks. I mean, look at the beauty of this place.
If you’ve never heard of Topdog/Underdog you are in for quite a ride. (Disclaimer, I’ve heard of this play and read it but I had never seen a production of this play before.) This tragically brilliant two-hander play, follows the story of two brothers, Lincoln (Brandon Micheal Hall) and Booth (Brandon Gill). These brothers are navigating finding their place in this gritty world after being abandoned by their parents.
Curtain up and the stage has a spotlight on Booth with a piece of cardboard on some milk crates as he’s shuffling three cards. I immediately recognized this game as the play began. Growing up in New York, I would see men in Times Square doing this trick, and now living in Los Angeles, I see men in Venice Beach “playing this game.” This play finally gave me a name to the hustler’s hustle that is the three-card monte. What I learned was that the game is rigged. The symbolism between this game, these brothers are playing, and the game of life in America seems so parallel. I believe that is the intention of the playwright to have us question: Is the American Dream rigged? Is it a scam? Although this play was written in the early 2000s, it seems very fitting still in 2025. What does it take for two black men to fight their way out of poverty? Do they have a way out?
Scenic Designer Tesshi Nakagawa brought us into the world of a seedily furnished rooming house room. Nakagawa’s set didn’t take up the entire stage, yet it was a box that felt small for grown men while it towered high for us sitting up in the Mezzanine. One line from the play that stayed with me long after, “You're only yourself when no one’s watching!” The beauty of theater and this play is that we get to watch the private moments of these characters. Can Booth and Lincoln break the generational curses of their family legacy? We see men who are puffed up with pride and ego. Men who both struggled with a gnawing, a craving to prove something. Will their pride lead to their fall? You must go to the Pasadena Playhouse to watch the humor and pain. Topdog/Underdog is poignant and beautifully done.
I must mention one thing, and I promise it doesn’t spoil the play. Booth is hiding and sneaks his way out of the apartment by putting a chair in front of the fridge, climbing up it, and going up to the second platform to exit the apartment and come back in so his brother doesn’t notice he was there all along. Gregg T Daniel is definitely on my list of directors I would love to work with one day. Daniel made use of the entire room and filled up moments, with physical comedy, keeping us entertained. So get dressed, bring a friend, and make your way over to the theater.
