NEW YORK (AP) — Yahya Abdul-Mateen II first encountered the play “Topdog/Underdog” in college, performing a section as a favor for a student director who needed actors for a showcase. It turned into a favor for Abdul-Mateen.
“I immediately came alive. I used to struggle with contemporary work because none of the characters felt like me. I didn’t really relate,” he says. “It unlocked something inside of me where I just could give everything that I had to give to it.”
Abdul-Mateen returned to Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer-winning work this winter, earning a Tony Award nomination in his Broadway debut opposite Corey Hawkins.
“To be on Broadway was always the goal. I didn’t even need to be a star of a show. I just wanted to be on the stage and to have more than a few lines and that was success,” he says.
“Just to be able to fulfill the artistic calling and to do it on that stage was what the goal was. And to have my first Broadway experience doing ‘Topdog/Underdog,’ it’s just a gift. It’s a full circle moment for me.”
“Topdog/Underdog” is about two brothers, abandoned in their teenage years, named Lincoln and Booth, as they deal with the ramifications of their history while fending for themselves by hustling. It’s about sibling rivalry, inequality and society’s false promises.
Abdul-Mateen calls it “a peek into what life might be like for someone in the city over or in your next door neighbor’s house or upstairs on the third floor. It’s a deeply, deeply, deeply human story.”
The play’s revival came during a season with rich explorations of the Black experience, including a Black-led “Death of a Salesman” and a revival of August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson.” All show an American dream that is cracked.
“These guys are just really trying to strive to fulfill their dreams, to step into the identity of who they know they are on…
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