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A fellow conman with whom Lincoln used to hustle. While Lincoln served as the dealer in Three-Card Monte, Lonny would subtly encourage passersby to join the game. However, hustling can be dangerous, and on Lincoln’s… read analysis of Lonny. "My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof."
- Cookie
The Topdog/Underdog quotes below are all either spoken by...
- Lincoln
The Topdog/Underdog quotes below are all either spoken by...
- Lonny
Get the entire Topdog/Underdog LitChart as a printable PDF....
- Booth
The Topdog/Underdog quotes below are all either spoken by...
- Grace
The Topdog/Underdog quotes below are all either spoken by...
- Symbols
Topdog/Underdog Introduction + Context. Plot Summary....
- Scene Three
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in...
- Scene Five
Lincoln muses aloud about returning to the arcade the...
- Cookie
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. In 2002, Parks received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Outer Critics Circle Award for the play; it received other ...
In Topdog/Underdog, it could easily be argued that of the two brothers, Booth and Lincoln, either is the true protagonist.However, when we consider what makes a protagonist a protagonist ...
- Lincoln
- Booth
- Non-Speaking Characters
Lincoln, often referred to by Booth as “Link,” is the older brother by fiveyears. Link is in his late thirties and used to be married to a woman namedCookie, but she slept with Booth and subsequently the two divorced. He playsthe guitar and works as an Abraham Lincoln impersonator. As an impersonator hedresses up in Lincoln attire, including whitef...
Booth is the “underdog.” The younger of the two brothers, Booth isunemployed but desperately trying to teach himself three-card monte so that hecan be a successful card hustler like his brother. Early on in the play hegives himself the nickname “3-Card” and threatens to shoot anyone who doesn’tcall him by his new name, foreshadowing his irrationali...
Link and Booth are the only characters who speak in the play, but there area handful of other characters who are referenced throughout and who influencethe two brothers. Lonny was Link's closest associate when he was hustling cardson the street, but he was shot and killed one afternoon. They never learned whomurdered him, and his death is the reaso...
In Topdog/Underdog, Parks subverts the blackface tradition by having Lincoln, a black character, don whiteface to portray the very man who emancipated the slaves. Cite this page as follows ...
First and foremost, Topdog/Underdog owes one of its defining conceits—a black man who works as an Abraham Lincoln impersonator—to The America Play, which Suzan-Lori Parks wrote in 1992. In this play, a black gravedigger resembles and adores President Lincoln, so he works as an impersonator, allowing his customers reenact John Wilkes Booth ...
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A black man in his early thirties, Booth is the younger of two brothers and the perpetual underdog. He is intensely jealous of his brother, Lincoln, and views his brother as an obstacle to his vision of success. As a kid, Booth tried hard to emulate Lincoln by joining in the hustle of Lincoln’s successful but illegal three-card monte game but ...
