TOPDOG/UNDERDOG at ArtsWest

A Pulitzer Prize Winning Contemporary Classic.

A darkly comic fable of brotherly love and family identity. It was inevitable that two brothers named Lincoln and Booth, names given to them as a joke, would live lives full of sibling rivalry and resentment. Despite it all, their bond grew deep, but can it withstand the weight of history?

TOPDOG/UNDERDOG is about the struggle to reach success in a system that is rigged. This drama packs a punch with as much comedy as it has intensity. A rooming house room the size of a boxing ring becomes a pressure cooker for the two brothers who share a past and are carving their own paths as they strive towards their dreams for the future.

Director Valerie Curtis-Newton remarks, “The life of a dog in the fight is a life that breeds paranoia. The under dog is always watching their back and struggling to reach the top. The top dog gets to call the shots, but for how long? TOPDOG/UNDERDOG puts the pain of that cycle under a microscope with the hope that in investigating it, we can learn to break it.”