Topdog/Underdog – B

My heart sank a bit when I realized I was to spend the next two hours with just these two men–losers, really–on one set where very little was going to happen. Their rapid-fire dialogue and three-card monte dexterity, the theatrical equivalent to the break dancers who had just entertained us in Times Square, made the time pass painlessly and with humor. As for any bigger message, yes, I know that life is unfair and these men had been dealt a bad hand, beyond being Black; but I had a hard time empathizing with characters whose life choices relied on conning strangers and shoplifting. After a lot of mundane badinage, the finale exploded unconvincingly around two dramatic, but unlikely, actions. The comparisons with Downstate all favor the latter.