Sibling rivalry boils over: Ubuntu Theater presents Suzan Lori-Parks’ Pulitzer-winning Topdog/Underdog

Who’s the mark? Booth (Michael Curry) and Lincoln (Dorian Lockett) attempt to out hustle each other. Photos courtesy of Simone Finney, 2018.

Something bad that keeps rising… Booth’s words to Link. Do you feel it, too? But before Link can answer, Booth determines that Link does a better job keeping his demons at bay. After all, he’s chosen a clean life after years of hustling three-card Monte. He won’t even touch the cards.

In a season of site-specific shows, Ubuntu takes us to the Waterfront Playhouse in Berkeley, to a tiny black box theater. Here we are voyeurs into Booth and Link’s living quarters, of less than average amenities, they are two brothers barely surviving. Sleeping on crates, eating off crates, stuffing stolen clothes into crates, and storing their few beloved personal items in crates. Their parents abandoned them as children, first their mother, then their father. Each left the other brother a $500 dollar inheritance, leaving Booth to wonder, did they plan the escape together?

Continue reading “Sibling rivalry boils over: Ubuntu Theater presents Suzan Lori-Parks’ Pulitzer-winning Topdog/Underdog

Theater Review: Dance Of The Holy Ghosts at Oakland Peace Center, Ubuntu Theater Project, 3/23/18

Edited by Jessica Vaden

Dance of the Holy Ghosts returns to playwright’s native Oakland roots

Berwick Haynes (Oscar) with Viola’s famous sweet potato pie and Michael Curry (Marcus) with his precisely organized Crayolas™?. Photo courtesy of Simone Finney, 2018.

They say the brain only recalls the parts it wants to remember. And so it goes, memory is fragmented, and unreliable, as we come to learn in Ubuntu Theater Project’s production of Dance of the Holy Ghosts by Marcus Gardley.

Gardley is an Oakland native, and there’s something about seeing a play in the space that it’s intended for that really draws on the fragility that a memory play evokes. Walking through the doors of Oakland Peace Center, one immediately confronts a specific time and place which then colors the viewer’s experience. Bringing it all together, a complete choir of gospel singers open the show in this untraditional but very fitting setting. Continue reading “Theater Review: Dance Of The Holy Ghosts at Oakland Peace Center, Ubuntu Theater Project, 3/23/18″