Rating: 
Summary: Stinky Dog
Review: About the only thing I wanted to do after seeing this was demand my money back. This has to be one of the most unimaginative plays I have ever seen. It reminded me of a really bad Saturday night live parody meets Friday part 2 but at the end the writer tried to make it poingnant by adding a death. I don't know why this was even printed. If I was a tree that lost my life to print this play I would come back as a ghost a haunt the publisher till his dying day.
Rating: 
Summary: WOW
Review: Although I would highly recommend seeing this show in production (on Broadway now), just reading the play is enough to take anyone on a serious roller-coaster ride. Humorous and tragic, this play just knocked me out. I had already read two others by Ms. Parks (In the Blood and Venus), but this one has more kick, more oomph and requires you to invest yourself in the lives of Lincoln and Booth.
Rating:
Summary: Just a Dog
Review: I am a casual reader of drama and a casual theater-goer; so take my opinion here for what it is worth. I picked up Topdog/Underdog because it had won a Pulitzer Prize. I was very disappointed. 109 pages of largely inane dialog that ends with tragedy -- tragedy that I as a reader did not feel a bit. There is a certain cleverness here: characaters named Booth and Lincoln; Lincoln works as Abe Lincoln at an arcade where he is shot throughout the day. This play obviously did something for other readers, but it did not do it for me.An idea for a sequel: a play with characters named Kennedy, Patsy (also called Oswald), Ruby, Tony (godfather to the children and a soprano), and an unnamed Big Brother. By play's end Kennedy, Oswald and Ruby are all dead and Big Brother is in bed with the Godfather.
Rating:
Summary: Just a Dog
Review: I am a casual reader of drama and a casual theater-goer; so take my opinion here for what it is worth. I picked up Topdog/Underdog because it had won a Pulitzer Prize. I was very disappointed. 109 pages of largely inane dialog that ends with tragedy -- tragedy that I as a reader did not feel a bit. There is a certain cleverness here: characaters named Booth and Lincoln; Lincoln works as Abe Lincoln at an arcade where he is shot throughout the day. This play obviously did something for other readers, but it did not do it for me. An idea for a sequel: a play with characters named Kennedy, Patsy (also called Oswald), Ruby, Tony (godfather to the children and a soprano), and an unnamed Big Brother. By play's end Kennedy, Oswald and Ruby are all dead and Big Brother is in bed with the Godfather.
Rating:
Summary: Pulitzer Prize winner
Review: I just wanted to note that this play won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. I also saw it on Broadway recently and was really impressed. This is a work of serious literary merit that I suspect will be studied in an academic context for many decades.
Rating: 
Summary: Amateurish and unoriginal
Review: I recall working as a script reader for a major regional theatre, and if this play had crossed my desk, it would have definitely gone in the reject pile. That it won a Pulitzer Prize confounds all rationale thought. The structure and format of the play is derivative of dozens of much better "unconventional" plays that were performed weekly in the heyday of the Off-Off Broadway movement of the 60's & 70's. The characterizations are utterly unoriginal; and the "truth" about African-American males, American culture, etc., that the play seems to practically scream at you is on the level of a high school social studies class. In fact, I had a dreadful feeling as I watched it that I was at a staged reading at a playwright's workshop. In truth there is little use of the stage as a space, and for all intents and purposes could just as well have been a radio play. I've seen better art and commentary about "the black man in America" just hanging out on streetcorners in New York. Two-character plays are difficult to write to begin with owing to tendency for dialogue to reduce itself to a ping-pong monotony. However, in this play, there was very little "ping." What took the cake is that the names of the characters give away the predicatable ending within the first ten minutes. Perhaps the author has written some good plays, but in my opinion this is not one of them.
Rating:
Summary: Painful to watch
Review: I recently saw this in New York. And quite frnkly i don't see what the big deal is about. I could have gone down to Nostrum in Brooklyn and picked up better more intelligent dialouge. Is this what our society considers literarture? As an African american woman I feel ill to see trash such as this portraying African american men in such a stereotypical light (from an african american writer no less.) Suzan Lori Parks is no more than an uncle tom who panders to the predominantly white theatre patron. I personally would like to see more plays about black men in positions of power and responsibility not the same old junk that america has pidgeon holed them into as drunken lazy womanizing thugs.
Rating:
Summary: WOW!!! What a piece of #%@!
Review: I think I have it all figured out. The gods of the theatre today have decided that good storytelling, clever dialouge and well developed characters are no longer neccesary. Instead all you need are marginalized characters with poorly executed themes and an author which reaffirms whatever lame agenda is hot at the moment and Shebang!!! you've got a hit. I am not black , I am hispanic, but if I was black I would be horribly embarrased by this piece of filth. It does nothing more than make black men look like knuckle dragging morons who roam the streets looking for the next mark. It has no redeeming qualities or hope for the future generations whatsoever. It is simply a celebration of the degredation and sense spiritual atrophy that America has fallen into. If this is the future of american literature then i'm going to start reading Latin and European authors exclusivly from now on. at least they actually have something intelligent to say. And as for the rhythm that so many have raved about? It is akin to a well produced N-SYNC or Brittany song, Sounds nice has a funky beat "but like a dull knife it just ain't cuttin' just talkin' loud and sayin' nothin'" as the great James Brown once said.
Rating:
Summary: I feel moor stoopid fo redin' dis play
Review: I'll make this quick. Saw it. Read it. Hated it. This was required reading for my dramatic theory class last semester and bonus points for having seen it. It was very tense and exhausting in the beginning. More tense and exhausting towards the middle and by the end I was ready to yell out "shoot the Son of a #$%^& already and end this so I can so home and do something productive." In 10 years when people are considering what plays to revive from the past this play will have been long forgotten save for the fact that it was written by an African american writer, which is all fine and great but is not solid ground within itself to merit te rave reviews it has recieved from certain members of the press. All in all I suggest NOT seeing this play or reading it if you value your sanity. It is extreamly mindless and boring.
Rating:
Summary: A Brave, Original Work For The Stage
Review: In a recent interview, Suzan-Lori Parks said she wrote plays when characters tugged on her sleeve and told her they wanted her to write for them. She went on to say that Topdog/Underdog, which had just been awarded the Pulitzer for drama, came to her as a "gift" in three days of work. After reading this play, I must agree that it's a product of Divine inspiration. Topdog/Underdog gives voice to two brothers, Lincoln and Booth, as they posture and play and explore the dynamics of being the younger and the older, the experienced and the eager, the resigned and the motivated. It's a stunning meditation on race and family and class ... made all the more stunning as it pours forth from two down-and-out, plain-spoken, African-American men, characters Parks herself has been criticized for writing about. What these critics have failed to realize is that by giving voice to these marginalized, unsympathetic characters, she has tapped into the darker, less acceptable side in each of us. It's a beautifully crafted work that deserves a far greater audience.
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