Playwright Will Stage Her \'Topdog\' With Brothers in Lead Roles

By ERIK PIEPENBURG

Ten years after Suzan-Lori Parks's dark comedy “Topdog/Underdog” won the Pulitzer Prize for drama, Ms. Parks will be directing a new production of the play at Two River Theater Company in Red Bank, N.J. this fall. The show begins performances on Sept. 8, and continues through Sept. 30, with opening night set for Sept. 14.

For Ms. Parks, the author of the reworked book for the “The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess,” directing “Topdog” has given her a chance to revisit a work that she's seen only once since it opened on Broadway in 2002, and hasn't read again either.

“I haven't really clung to it,” she said. “I hadn't re-read it intentionally. I sat there on the first day of rehearsal and I had that wonderful feeling of, who wrote this? It's such a beautiful play. I have that feeling you get when you are very deep into your own work, and very free with it. I've felt that with other plays, but I felt it a lot here.”

John Dias, Two River's artistic director, and Michael Hurst, its managing director, worked with Ms. Parks for many years at the Public Theater, where they were involved in the development and premieres of many of her plays, including the original production of “Topdog/Underdog.” Ms. Parks has directed other productions of her work, but this will be the first time for “Topdog/Underdog,” which she describes as being about “all those beautiful and complicated feelings about family.”

In the roles of the two brothers, Ms. Parks has cast real-life siblings: Brandon J. Dirden (“Clybourne Park”) will play Lincoln, and his younger brother, Jason Dirden (“Fences”), will be Booth. Jeffrey Wright played Lincoln and Don Cheadle was Booth in the show's original 2001 production at the Public Theater. Mos Def replaced Mr. Cheadle when Mr. Wright reprised his role in the show's transfer to Broadway the next year.

“They really are Lincoln and Booth,” Ms. Parks said of the brothers Dirden. “Not in the specifics of the difficult family circumstances but in the psychological dynamics of little brother and big brother. They completely understand that. It's funny to watch. I get to play mom.”