Topdog/Underdog

by Suzan-Lori Parks

Overview

Winner of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

A darkly comic fable of brotherly love and family identity is Suzan-Lori Parks latest riff on the way we are defined by history. The play tells the story of Lincoln and Booth, two brothers whose names were given to them as a joke, foretelling a lifetime of sibling rivalry and resentment. Haunted by the past, the brothers are forced to confront the shattering reality of their future.

Suzan-Lori Parks is the author of numerous plays, including In the Blood and Venus. She is currently head of the A.S.K. Theater Projects Writing for Performance Program at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781559366243
Publisher:	Theatre Communications Group
Publication date:	06/01/2001
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	112
File size:	160 KB

About the Author

One of the contemporary American theater's most innovative wordsmiths. Her plays include: Topdog/Underdog (2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama), In the Blood (2000 Pulitzer-nominee), Fucking A, Venus (OBIE Award), The America Play and Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom (OBIE Award, Best New American Play). She is also a screenwriter, novelist, and MacArthur "Genius" grantee.

Hometown:

Los Angeles, California

Date of Birth:

May 10, 1963

Place of Birth:

Fort Knox, Kentucky

Education:

B.A., Mt. Holyoke College, 1985

Website:

http://www.suzanloriparks.com/

Editorial Reviews

A darkly comic fable of brotherly love and family identity, Suzan-Lori Parks's Topdog/Underdog is the story of two brothers, Lincoln and Booth -- named by their father in a joke that will come to define their destiny -- who share an all-consuming obsession with the street con game Three-Card Monte. It's also a richly multilayered drama that offers striking revelations on the nature of power and the fallacy of democratic egalitarianism.

bn.com editor

...an utterly mesmerizing evening of theater...the vitality, freshness and gritty lyricism of Parks' writing are unlike anything to be heard on a Broadway Stage...

Variety

...[a] vibrant comic drama of shifting identity and betrayal...from the ferociously talented author of and ...

NY Times

The issues are gripping, the characters are dynamite...a must-see play.

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