Top of their game: Steppenwolf’s Davis, Smallwood deliver in provocative ‘Topdog/Underdog’

“Topdog/Underdog” ― 4 stars

No one aggravates like a sibling … or so I’ve heard. Being an only child, I never experienced that relationship firsthand, but I have it on good authority (and personal observation) that brothers and sisters can rile each other up like no one else.

Suzan-Lori Parks captures that family dynamic — in all its raw complexity and dark humor — in “Topdog/Underdog,” now in a riveting revival at Steppenwolf Theatre under the direction of Kenny Leon.

At its core, Parks’ 2001 Pulitzer- and Tony-winning play is about rival Black brothers Lincoln (Glenn Davis), named for President Abraham Lincoln, and Booth (Namir Smallwood), named for Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth. The reason? A cruel joke on the part of their alcoholic father.

Neglected and impoverished, the brothers were abandoned by both parents when they were boys. As adults sharing Booth’s single room with a communal bathroom down the hall, they remain bound by trauma.

Picking at each other’s scabs, pressing each other’s bruises, they navigate a shifting power dynamic rooted in manipulation, competition and love, all of which Davis and Smallwood artfully express. More than once, they had me leaning forward in my seat.

That’s the attention demanded by their performances and Parks’ weighty, roughly lyrical tale.

Leon locates that sweet spot between humor and heartbreak and keeps the narrative moving while allowing the story to breathe. (The first act, which spanned about 75 minutes, felt shorter.)

We first meet Booth, a petty thief and aspiring three-card-monte hustler, who spends his time “throwing cards” and practicing his patter in the cramped, rundown apartment designed by Arnulfo Maldonado.

He shares that room with newly divorced older brother Lincoln. An accomplished dealer, Lincoln gave up hustling cards after his friend and crew member was killed. He works at an arcade where he dresses as the 16th president — in whiteface, a beard and a stovepipe hat — and sits waiting for patrons who pay to “assassinate” him.

Desperate to keep his job (to keep him and his brother housed), Lincoln worries his boss will replace him with a wax dummy.

“Sit down job. With benefits,” breathes Davis’ Lincoln, like a man unaccustomed to either and grateful for both.

Smallwood’s Booth has bigger plans. He urges Lincoln to quit the job and go back to fleecing foolish tourists at three-card monte.

“If we could work together, it would be like old times,” he says. “It was you and me against the world, Link. It could be like that again.”

But there’s more to the play than brothers battling over careers.

“Topdog/Underdog” examines race and identity, power and poverty. Named for the Great Emancipator, Lincoln endures humiliation and discrimination at work, where he wears whiteface and earns less than his white counterparts.

Both he and Booth are trapped by generational poverty, making it impossible for them to achieve the American dream represented by the lush gold curtain framing the stage and hanging overhead: a sign of comfort and excess forever beyond these characters’ reach.

In their program notes, co-artistic directors Audrey Francis and Davis suggest Lincoln and Booth aren’t pursuing the American dream as much as they are playing the American game, and it’s rigged against them.

The performances by the ideally cast Davis and Smallwood are unfussy and unassuming in the very best way.

The gruff, uncertain, financially unstable Booth — whom Smallwood plays with an undercurrent of menace — is the showier, more emotionally needy role. Booth’s eagerness to team up with his brother isn’t just about making money, it’s also about securing an emotional connection, something he seems to want with his unseen, sometime girlfriend Grace. Smallwood excels at playing vulnerability, but is never pitiable.

Davis is just as impressive. His Lincoln is more refined, as evidenced by his polished vocal timbre and intonation. But his torment, while not immediately obvious, is no less damaging.

Davis’ performance is subtle, calculating even (witness how he wheedles Booth out of a necktie), but it’s not without compassion.

Steppenwolf has set a high bar for the season. I can’t wait to see what’s next.

• • •

Location: Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St., Chicago, 312-335-1650, steppenwolf.org

Showtimes: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; 3 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday; and 3 p.m. Sunday through Nov. 1. Also 2 p.m. Oct. 21. No 7:30 performances Oct. 6, 13, 21 or 22

Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes, with intermission

Tickets: $20-$142.50

Parking: Paid lots nearby

Rating: For mature audiences; contains violence, adult language and subject matter