James Reynolds
In the summer of 2009 my wife Lissa and I were performing our solo plays (A Woman of Independent Means and I Too, Am America) at the Cape May Stage in Cape May, NJ. Roy Steinberg, the artistic director of that theater, asked if we would be interested in producing Topdog/Underdog at our theater, the Fremont Centre Theatre, and then moving it to the Cape May Stage. We hesitated because a large part of our mission is to present original drama.
Although we will occasionally diverge, our intent is to present new scripts that have not been produced previously. Topdog/Underdog had a well known beginning at the Public Theater in 2002. Not only did it win a Pulitzer Prize for its playwright, Suzan-Lori Parks, but the production was well received with its first cast of Jeffrey Wright and Don Cheadle and the later recast of Mos Def in Cheadle’s role.
Topdog/Underdog is about two brothers named Lincoln and Booth. Yes, that Lincoln and Booth. As you might imagine the relationship is contentious and rancorous. Lincoln, the older brother, is a reformed street hustler who is trying to go straight. His previous life had led him to become one of the best 3-Card Monte artists on the street. However, the death of his best friend and the chaos of his own life have led him to give up dealing Monte and take a job portraying Abraham Lincoln in a cheap seaside arcade.
Each day customers would pay admission and line up to assassinate Abe over and over again. “They shoot phony Honest Abe with their phony pistols,” says Lincoln as he wipes his face clean of the white face he is forced to wear to cover his blackness when he portrays the 16th President.
Booth aspires to be the 3-Card Monte genius that Lincoln was but now disparages. He enjoys the street life. Most of his possessions were acquired through “boosting” and he carries his pistol with the pride of a businessman’s brief case. Booth feels his life can only be validated by getting his brother back to dealing 3-Card Monte and by reacquiring the love of Grace, his one time girlfriend who has grown frustrated with Booth’s “scheming and dreaming.”
After reading the play I was fascinated by Suzan-Lori Parks’ wonderful dialogue and extraordinary structure. Lissa and I felt compelled to tell Roy our theater would partner in this production.
FCT has been fortunate to have Fran Bascom as a board member and casting director. As usual Fran brought tremendous actors to us to audition for the roles of Booth and Lincoln. We were in the wonderful position of not being able to go wrong in picking any of the talented actors we saw. We final decided to cast Stephen Rider as Booth and Jed Reynolds as Lincoln.
Stephen was new to us. He is a gregarious young man who graduated from UCLA and hails from Delaware. He had just finished the film The Great Debaters which I happen to have some distant relationship with (having talked to the writer in the “Gee, I hope this can get made” stage). Jed played Jackie Robinson in our, very successful, production of National Pastime. Since Jed has also played my son for a lifetime, it meant I would be working with someone I knew very well…always an advantage in directing a play.
Stephen Rider Jed Reynolds
We opened on August 21, 2010. Theater is a leap of faith that involves a congregation teaming with fear, hope, and a universal wish to create. Opening night is a collective sharing of heightened senses, shredded nerves and tremendous anticipation. The play became a hit. A successful play is like a repeated graduation day. All of the hard work, the laughter, the camaraderie and the shared ambition were worth it. We succeeded! We did it!
We had to move to the next part of our journey. Actually we had a real journey to make… all the way to New Jersey. Now a new issue arose. Something those of us who live in cosmopolitan cities frequently forget about. The President of the Board of Cape May Stage decided the very real street language of the play would offend the sensibilities of their audience. Lissa and I were at first flabbergasted and then incensed. The questions raised were larger than our commitment to this production. We seemed to have stumbled into the front lines of the Culture War.
Art is by nature confrontational. Language (in the case of this play all of the F, A, B, and S words) had been an issue for centuries before Shakespeare picked up his quill. When two young blacks speak the words men fear, angst will begin to filter into what is often an older white audience. Roy Steinberg was also upset about this decision to back away from our agreement to move this show to his theater. He discovered this was not a board decision but the action of one overzealous individual. The show was back on the road.
The Cape May production was also a resounding success. Jed and Stephen proved to be as charming off stage as they were dynamic on stage. Cape May became captivated with them as young men while word passed through the streets what a wonderful work of theater was playing in the city. Folk began driving in from Philadelphia and New York to see this production.
We knew we wanted to present Topdog/Underdog again at the Fremont Centre
Theatre. All of the time the play was running in New Jersey, people who missed it first time around would tell us how much they hoped to see the play. We also loved the production team we had assembled and wanted one more chance to experience working together on Topdog/Underdog. With a resounding “yes” from the actors, stage manager Grady Hutt, lighting designer Carol Doering, and set designer Dove Huntley we sat out to capture lightning in a bottle again.
I think we have done it. Last Saturday, we opened what will be version three of the Fremont Centre Theatre production of Topdog/Underdog. I have never been prouder of a production. Our hope is that Suzan-Lori Parks will attend at some point during this run. We think she will be pleased and excited by our interpretation of her wonderful script. Lincoln and Booth live their distressed lives with very tearful pathos and gut-wrenching anger in this production. Stephen and Jed give these two brothers extreme depth and touch the audience in a deeply emotional way.
This journey began almost two years ago in a seaside theater in a distant part of the country. Now that we see the end is floating in front of us, we can reflect on this special trip. Please join us for the final miles.
Topdog/Underdog, produced by James & Lissa Reynolds and California Performing Arts Centre. Fri.-Sat., 8pm; through Feb. 26. Tickets: $20-$25. Fremont Centre Theatre, 1000 Fremont Ave. (free parking behind theater); South Pasadena; 866.811.4111 or fremontcentretheatre.com.
