Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks’s Topdog/Underdog is a withering portrait of a subversive American dream. The Blackbird Theatre’s production presents this story of two brothers through the lens of their dystopian domesticity, almost disappointed in, yet defensive of, the struggles of the underprivileged, persevering black man.

Lincoln (Brian Marable) and Booth (Ruell Black), their names a bad joke from a long-gone father, appear to have no one but each other. Lincoln, the elder brother, is recliner-surfing on Booth’s good graces after being kicked out by his wife. While he tries to make a stable living (of all things, portraying Abraham Lincoln in whiteface at an arcade shooting gallery), naively ambitious Booth wants to build a three-card Monte empire, but requires the expertise and guidance of former savant Lincoln. Amid discussions of the weekly budget, the women in their lives, and their absent parents and woeful upbringing, Booth and Lincoln enter into a larger, longer con that sheds light on their past and an ominous shadow over their futures.