![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() He works in an arcade where he dresses up as, yes, Abraham Lincoln – complete with whiteface - and allows white patrons to come in and “shoot” him on a daily basis. ![]() To pay their bills, Lincoln, once the king of three-card monte dealers, has now resigned himself to a different life. (The fine scenic design is by Arnulfo Maldonado, who also frames the stage a la Washington D.C.’s famed Ford Theatre.) So, we truly understand the mixture of hope and despair with which the unfortunately named brothers Lincoln (Corey Hawkins) and Booth (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) approach life in the dingy one-room flat they’ve been forced to share. If anything, this bracing work has even more resonance than it did two decades ago, in large part because some of us have become even more aware of the inequities facing the Black community in light of the BLM movement and the murder of George Floyd. Are we truly the products of free will? Or are our lives predestined – by societal expectations, by the tragedies of our adolescence, even by the names given to us by our parents? These questions – and more – swirl through our mind during Kenny Leon’s mesmerizing and exquisitely acted revival of Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Topdog/Underdog,” now at Broadway’s John Golden Theatre. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |