'During breaks we tell family stories, which just adds to the deep family connection that's in the play.' 'They're much more comfortable with each other than other actors might be,' Parks says. Dirden (Broadway's 'Clybourne Park' and August Wilson's 'Jitney' at Two River) stars alongside Jason Dirden, who was in Wilson's 'Fences' on Broadway. The Red Bank production (which begins previews on Saturday) has an unusual casting twist: The actors are real-life brothers.

'I think it's about what it means to be family and, in the biggest sense, the family of man, what it means to be connected with somebody else.' 'I think the meaning of the play isn't just confined to a man's experience,' Parks says. Their parents abandoned them many years ago, a fact that haunts them throughout the drama. Booth, meanwhile, shoplifts and dreams of running a three-card monte game on the street like his brother used to do, all with the goal of impressing the girl of his dreams. Even though he is underpaid - in part because of his race - he clings to the job, fearing that he will be replaced by a wax dummy. Lincoln works in an arcade, dressing in whiteface as his namesake, pretending to watch his final play as customers shoot cap guns at him. 'Topdog/Underdog' tells the story of brothers named Lincoln and Booth - their father's idea of a joke. 'When we read the play on the first day of rehearsal, I had the feeling like, 'Wow, who wrote this? This is a really good play.' ' When playwright Suzan-Lori Parks signed on to direct her own Pulitzer Prize-winning play 'Topdog/Underdog' for the first time with Two River Theatre Company, the 2002 work felt completely new.

Top dog underdog play