Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended
"...Under the direction of Aaron Reese Boseman, Amin and Burrows excel in their respective portrayals of the brothers’ shifting power dynamic and the devastating circumstances that have trapped them there. They also leave plenty of space for the genuine humor and affection between them that persists despite their constant struggle to remain on top."
Talkin Broadway - Highly Recommended
"...In its new, much larger home at the Windy City Playhouse, Invictus Theatre Company loses none of the company's trademark intimacy or power with its production of Suzan Lori-Parks's Pulitzer Prize winning play Topdog/Underdog, directed by Aaron Reese Boseman. The show is intense, grueling, and hilarious by turns, fueled by the two leads' performances, which are remarkable both individually and in terms of the collaboration they establish."
Around The Town Chicago - Recommended
"...What is “brotherly love”? I am a middle child- with an older and a younger brother. While my older brother and I were close, my younger brother and I were as distant as a cousin in Utah might have been. In Suzan Lori-Park’s “Topdog/Underdog” we meet two brothers, Booth ( deftly handled by DeMorris Burrows) and his older brother, Lincoln (played to perfection by Mikha’el Amin ). During the course of the story, we will learn some of the secrets of their youth as well as get to know them for the men they are today."
Chicago Theatre Review - Highly Recommended
"...Suzan Lori-Parks’ 2001 Pulitzer Prize-winning two-hander play, Topdog/Underdog, now in an excellent new production by Invictus Theatre at the Windy City Playhouse, is about just such a three-card monte dealer and his brother, living in too-close quarters in a rooming house that’s probably in New York, though Parks never specifies the location. (Are there three-card Monte games or similar shell games on the streets of Toledo, Ohio?) It is about brotherly love and, far more crucially, brotherly hate. And, most of all — and, in this sense, very much like virtually any dramatic play one could name — it is about buried secrets and one secret in particular that Parks hides until the very end of the play like the pea in the shell game."
Buzznews.net - Highly Recommended
"...Invictus Theatre's smashingly good Chicago production of Susan-Lori Parks' "Topdog/Underdog" brings us a dark comedy that is both gripping and layered. This Tony winner for its current Broadway revival incorporates all the qualities of a well-written play, steadily unfolding details of the brothers who share a derelict apartment-the plaster is falling, the sink is broken, the working bathroom is down the hall-with exposition artfully buried in the dialog."
Third Coast Review - Highly Recommended
"...The way we are taught American history is a scratch-the-surface deal that requires us to keep digging. Playwright Suzan Lori-Parks is a master excavator of history and reveals it in the most wondrous ways. Parks' Pulitzer-winning Topdog/Underdog tells the story of two brothers named Lincoln (Mikha'el Amin) and Booth (DeMorris Burrows). These men have been navigating a hustler's world since they were abandoned and left to fend for themselves. Topdog/Underdog is directed brilliantly by Aaron Reese Boseman with a raw intensity that draws laughs and horror in the same breath."
Life and Times - Highly Recommended
"...The highly-decorated play is a two-person drama set in urban decay that has attracted such stars as Don Cheadle, Jeffrey Wright, Mos Def, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Corey Hawkins to take on its power. Clearly, it requires actors of the highest caliber to reach the bar of excellence that has been set. Invictus has two such stars in Mikha’el Amin and DeMorris Burrows."
Spotlight On Lake - Highly Recommended
"...Suzan-Lori Parks' play "Topdog/Underdog" has always been a showcase for two supremely talented actors. When it premiered off-Broadway, the 2002 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama starred Don Cheadle and Jeffrey Wright. During the 2022/2023 season, the Broadway revival was graced with two highly-respected and quite well-known actors, both of whom received Tony Award nominations for Lead Actor in a Play. The production itself went on to win the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play. Now, Invictus Theatre Company is presenting a powerhouse production, under the brilliant and compassionate direction of Aaron Reese Boseman, that features two of Chicago's very own up-and-coming stars that shine ever so brightly."
BroadwayWorld - Somewhat Recommended
"...Suzan-Lori Parks's groundbreaking play TOPDOG/UNDERDOG hardly needs an introduction for most fans of American theatre. Critic Ben Brantley described the original Broadway production as "a deeply theatrical experience." The following month, the script won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In 2018 The New York Times named it the best American play since Tony Kushner's ANGELS IN AMERICA. For these reasons and many others, it's perhaps fitting that Invictus Theatre Company is choosing to mark the artistic "groundbreaking" of their new headquarters with a work that marked a definite shift in the landscape of American letters. But while the production has moments of comedic entertainment and dramatic import, it struggles to live up to the play's substantial reputation."
NewCity Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...I first saw Suzan-Lori Parks' "Topdog/Underdog" in 2022, at the John Golden Theatre on Broadway. As the synopsis intends, I went into the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, not knowing what to expect. And I would give anything to relive the experience of seeing this play again for the first time. That's the kind of play this is. A gripping thriller/dark comedy that will not let you go until the final breath of the play."
