Topdog/Underdog, presented by Top Dog Productions in association with the Elephant Theatre, opens Aug. 6; plays Fri.-Sat., 8 pm; Sun., 2 & 7 pm; through Sept. 12. Tickets: $25. Lillian Theatre, 1076 Lillian Way, Hollywood; 323.960.7719 or plays411.com/topdog.

When Topdog/Underdog first ran off-Broadway it was regarded as one of Suzan-Lori Parks most traditional and accessible plays. The MacArthur “Genius” went on to win the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in Drama for the piece.

The last time the play was done in Los Angeles was in 2004 at the Mark Taper Forum. Now it is heading towards a more intimate space - the Elephant’s Lillian Theatre. The story chronicles the lives of two brothers, Booth and Lincoln, who were abandoned by their parents and therefore are bound together through pure necessity. It is a seemingly straightforward storyline but as director Marty Papazian points out, “It’s not a traditional play.”

Marty Papazian.

Dressed in dark jeans, white tee, puffy black vest and a black ivy cap, he’s soft spoken with a subtle urban rhythm of speech as he continues. “It looks like one but it’s not. It looks fun and simple but it’s not. There are so many layers. It’s interesting hearing [Suzan-Lori Parks] talk about the play in interviews because she always has very simple responses. She’ll say, ‘This play is just about two brothers.’ And it is, just about two brothers.”

M.D. Walton, whose enthusiasm for the play immediately draws you in, is the man who made this production happen. He plays Booth opposite A.K. Murtadha as Lincoln and concurs with Papazian. “For me, it is just about these two brothers trying to survive. It’s a cyclical nature of survival that happens. They were abandoned by their parents at ages 16 and 11. Their father named them Lincoln and Booth as a joke. There’s a historical significance of the piece as well. It’s like [Parks] says, the characters… they talk to her while she writes. It’s not like she plans this stuff in her head, which is amazing because there’s so many different nuances.”

“Yeah,” agrees Papazian, “she’s said this was the easiest play for her to write. And as we’re going through it…”

“It’s complex,” interjects Walton, releasing a boisterous laugh.

“…it just blows us away. And the nature of siblings - there’s so much in that,” Papazian marvels. “In a moment you could be laughing and having the time of your life; the next moment you could be at each other’s throats, wanting to kill each other. And the humor helps you survive through trauma. These guys have been through a lot together.

“Lincoln used to be a three-card Monte hustler, who used to be quite successful, but he had a friend who got shot and died. And he feels responsible. He now has this sit-down job as he says.” He adds, “Booth is a thief.”

“An aspiring three-card Monte hustler,” clarifies Walton with a grin. “He watched his brother be successful at it. It’s not just a play about playing this game; it’s a love story.”

Booth wants to emulate his brother Lincoln says Papazian. “If it wasn’t three-card Monte, it would be whatever his brother was doing. It’s that his brother does it.”

Walton stresses, “The stakes are ridiculously high in this play.”

“And they’re high everywhere,” adds Papazian. “There’s this whole thing too about what’s real and what’s imagined.” For instance, with three-card Monte, it’s essentially a magic trick.

As the characters’ names suggest the past and even the future play important thematic roles. “But everything is happening right here, right now; in the moment, on their teeth. And they start to lose a handle on what’s real and what’s not. Ultimately that is what leads to their downfall,” reveals Papazian.

Walton elaborates: “Each brother has a different story of how their parents abandoned them. We’re talking about opposing points of view. Lincoln’s always talking about a job; he just wants to set himself straight. Booth is like, I’ve seen how the job world cracked up my parents; they divorced; they left. There’s no way I’m going to get a regular job. I just have to hustle.”

“It’s interesting how they remember the past. And how we remember history,” says Papazian.

When asked what his approach has been to directing this play, Papazian laughs out loud, “Madness! We began doing improvisational work, playing with it, trying to find a bunch of different ways - we’re trying to find where it wants to be. Something we’re really trying to carve out in it is that there’s a certain absurdity we can have here and get away with. A certain larger-than-life quality the play will support. And yet on the flip side - is the absolute: two brothers who love each other and hate each other and all the emotions in between. And I think that’s why the play, like [Parks] says, it looks like a traditional play but it’s not.”

Stylistically it is her most traditional play. “Absolutely, but it has all of the other imagination and arbitrariness of [Parks'] other [plays] that are just popping and crackling all over the place,” he replies. “It’s here in this play too and that’s what we’re starting to find more and more, the absurdity. But we’re crazy in life! Like when we break up with people, the way we scream and yell and throw things. We’re ridiculous. People are ridiculous, you know? That’s what we’re trying to do here; capture the ridiculousness of these two people who love and hate each other. Who have been living together for years; all they’ve had is each other.” Taking a breath, he adds, “And also, to really try to personalize the piece. I have three brothers; M.D. is ironically an only child…”

“I always asked for a brother when I was a child,” recounts Walton. “It’s interesting because, I try to take myself back when looking at Booth as a character. There was a strong need for a brother; there was a strong need for companionship.”

Papazian resumes, “I see my two older brothers in these characters; it’s wild. I think there’s something about the universality of her writing. Like with Eugene O’Neill or Arthur Miller, you’re watching these families from another time, another place that we know nothing about, yet somehow they’re exactly like our families. And I think that’s what’s so amazing about this piece. I think that may be why she doesn’t try to define it a certain way because she’s certainly honest when she says she didn’t write it from that point of view; she didn’t write it with any sort of agenda in mind. I think it came from such a pure place, which is why we’re reacting to the play in that way.”

M.D. Walton as Booth.

Walton had seen Topdog/Underdog when it first played at the Public Theatre in New York with Jeffrey Wright and Don Cheadle. “I saw it then and I just fell in love with it, everything about it. [Parks'] writing and lyricism was the beginning of my obsession. It changed me as an artist.”

Now, nine years later, Walton’s been busy raising the funds and putting together the team.

Papazian speaks of Walton’s effort to raise money as a super human effort. “With the economy tanking it’s a pure example of determination and inspiration.”

Linking the current economic conditions to the play, Walton says its themes of poverty and survival are even more relevant now.

“There’s a certain anxiety in the world now,” comments Papazian.

“Lincoln loses his job,” says Walton. “Like he says, ‘what the f— am I going to do?’”

“Something seems to be shifting in this country,” observes Papazian. “Everything’s sort of crass. These guys are fixed on the past, on these certain ideas about what happened. Lincoln’s got this sit-down job and that’s what he’s going to do. He’s not going to go back to playing the cards.  So when he does go back, it’s like a guy who’s addicted to heroin - his whole world opens up. Again, it’s his downfall.”

Identity plays an important role in this play. What about identity in relation to race? Walton answers, “Lincoln wears white face and Booth is constantly on him: I hate your job; I hate your get up; you’re an Uncle Tom.”

Papazian expands, “We wanted to have these guys in a specific location, make them real. We wanted to start in a place of reality. These are guys we could see and meet and would know. [But] I don’t think we’ve approached it with thinking about [race].”

Walton agrees. They hosted a celebrity panel in which Harold Perrineau, who had played Lincoln in the Taper production, said any race could play these two characters.

“It is universal in that way,” admits Papazian.

“It’s just about the struggle. Anybody could be in this situation.” After a brief pause, Walton adds, “It’s deep.”

“For this production it’s just about M.D. and A.K. - them working it out and going through the journey,” says Papazian. “As long as it’s personal for them and personal for me and we’ve cut it with that, then it will stand alone, you know.”

Speaking of Murtadha, I ask where he went. Ever the diligent actor, he’s in another room going over his lines. Still wearing his rehearsal Abe Lincoln frock coat, I ask what drew him to the play.

“Well, it’s funny, I just finished a production of The American Play [also by Parks] where there’s a character named Lincoln that has to do the same thing as Lincoln does in this play. He’s in kind of an arcade set up; people come in, they choose from a phony set of pistols and they walk into a booth,” he laughs, “no pun intended, and they shoot him.”

“In short: Lincoln is a great character. He’s a great person to embody and go on a journey with. He’s got a lot of pain going on. Within that, he’s trying to save his life and his brother’s… from ruin. And not really knowing how to do that. I’ve seen people like that.”

A.K. Murtadha as Lincoln.

On playing a Lincoln impersonator the history of blackface comes up. “You think of minstrel characters and usually when blacks were doing minstrel characters, they were putting on blackface to make them even darker. That’s kind of the joke inherent as well. He puts on this white face. He takes less money. But he does it to survive. He does it so he doesn’t have to go back to a life that could be in peril, in danger, with three-card Monte.”

Why would a black man put on whiteface? Murtadha speaks from his character’s point of view, “Because I have to. There’s no other alternative for me. There’s no going back to hustling.

“That’s the thing - he wants to grow. He’s got dreams and aspirations but there’s not the father or mother there to coach him along and say, ‘hey, you can do this.’ There’s no one there that’s putting these aspirations in his mind. What is there is his surroundings telling him ‘no you can’t, you live in poverty, you live in crime, you live in lack and that’s what you know.’ So he’s fighting against that.” He takes a moment and then, “The pull of ruin verses the unknown aspects of deliverance, of rising above things. That speaks to me as a black man.”

What has the process been like for the three men?

Instantaneously, Papazian remarks, “Gnarly.”

Laughing with agreement Walton adds, “It’s a beast.”

Continuing, Papazian lets the experience flow: “It’s been fun; it’s been hard; it’s been emotional. It’s been wild. It’s taken its toll; it’s taken a lot of time. But here we are; we’re in the final stretch. Sometimes a play is just a play. And sometime it can really affect you, you know? In a real personal way. It’s been a very personal process.”

“Same here,” agrees Walton. “With this play, it’s putting your heart on a plate. I take the play home with me sometimes; it’s hard to drop it.”

Papazian urges, “You’re dealing with three people who are…”

“crazy passionate!” emphatically interrupts Walton.

“…and committed. 100%,” Papazian finishes.

He hopes audiences have a visceral theatrical experience. “I hope they cry. I hope they laugh. I hope they are freaked out. I hope it’s a roller coaster ride for them of imagination and [then] being slapped back into reality. And a truly inspirational theatrical experience.”

“That’s that feeling I had when I first saw the piece,” gushes Walton.

Murtadha speaks of the transcendent experience unique to theatre. “Audience, the stage and a performer - sharing. It is that idea we are, as Shakespeare said, holding a mirror up to humanity. And letting humanity see itself. Within that, you learn - we learn. You see and realize there are people out there who are struggling, who don’t have. And are trying to get along, who are trying to make it the best that they can. But, dig it, [the play is] funny. Because, as my mother use to say, you laugh to keep from crying, you know.”

He elaborates on Booth and Lincoln’s relationship. “They come in and are unleashing on each other, they’re cutting each other. But at the same time, it’s a cut with an embrace. It’s a hey, smack - cut. Hey, hug - poke. Hey, kiss - bite. And I think within that, people will have a catharsis.” And within that catharsis, hopefully people will appreciate what they have.

Feature image of M.D. Walton and A.K. Murtadha by Randolph Adams Photography.

Article by Ashley Steed.