Historical Irony In Topdog/Underdog
A Look into the Depths of Suzan Lori-Parks' Play
In previous articles, it has been explained that Parks' play is enriched with post-race theory in that Topdog/Underdog embellishes race for the stage.Card hustling brothers Lincoln and Booth are the main characters in Park's play-they exist as the dilemma that occurs between livign in a dream and living a life that is possible in reality. They also closely mimic the historical figures which serve as their namesake while also being wildly different. Parks' clever play on names serves to further the impact she is trying to create with her words.
Historical Irony
The use of the names Lincoln and Booth for the characters in some ways mimics and/or re-writes the history of the United States in an ironic fashion. It is humorous to use the names of two prominent figures from our nations past. She in some ways undermines the social history of the US as well as the history of slavery. This is pushed over the top when you find out that the middle-aged black Lincoln is playing the part of an Abraham Lincoln impersonator at the arcade and that he is assassinated everyday by paying customers.
Basically, this figure of a black man is pretending to be the great emancipator of our pasts, but by turning the figures of the white Lincoln and the Booth into black men, Parks blurs the lines between races and makes it so that anyone can play these parts, which also means than anyone can become self-preserving and/or self-destructing.
The characters’ fates may be sealed due to a foreshadowing that occurs with the names given to the characters. It is logical to conclude that Booth will eventually kill Lincoln, but this didn’t have to be the case, the characters were given a chance to re-write history. They did not, however take initiative and change history; the black Booth does indeed kill the black Lincoln.
Unconventionality
Parks ignores conventionality in her play and instead furthers the idea of a post-race society, which is shown in more ways than discussed here, she undermines conventional logic as well as racism by depicting the situations in her play as personal history as a result of cultural mistrust instead of public history.
Though her story unfolds in the same manner as the historical story it mirrors, she accomplishes this in such a way that makes the social stigmas dissipate—this way is laughter, which is repeated through out the play’s entirety. The play represents a “dog-eat-dog” world full of endless hustles and shifting of power where one character is either the “top dog” or the “underdog”, though the positions aren’t steadfast.
