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Topdog/Underdog. Suzan-Lori Parks Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 2001. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. Download PDF. Access Full Guide. Study Guide. Before You Read.
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Topdog/Underdog is a play by American playwright Suzan-Lori Parks which premiered in 2001 off-Broadway in New York City. The next year it opened on Broadway, at the Ambassador Theatre, where it played for several months.
- Power
- History
- Death
- Names and Identity
In the character notes before the play begins, Suzan-Lori Parks identifiesLink as the eponymous “topdog” and Booth as the “underdog.” This immediatelyestablishes a fraught power dynamic. Link is older, which puts him in aposition of power, and this is further reinforced by his employment andseemingly greater financial security. Booth, meanwhile, st...
The play is inherently connected with history on a broad scale due to thenames of the two main characters, Lincoln and Booth, and Lincoln’s job as anAbraham Lincoln impersonator. Personal and familial history inform thecharacter development of the two brothers, while national history influencesthe plot and foreshadows the final climax. As the drama...
As with many Pulitzer Prize winners, death is a theme that is woventhroughout the narrative, though it only explicitly occurs on stage at thedramatic conclusion. Death is omnipresent in Link’s life because that is thebasis of his job; each day he reenacts his death dozens, if not hundreds, oftimes for the twisted entertainment of others. Abraham Li...
Identity is a complex but integral theme within Topdog/Underdog, with both Link and Booth seeking to establish individual identities but struggling to do so while trapped in a cycle of poverty and familial angst. Link is confident in his identity, as evidenced by his claim that he “was Lincoln before any of that,” despite a shared name with the Gre...
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