Critic Ben Brantley of The New York Times wrote:
The play, first produced downtown at the Joseph Papp Public Theater last year, vibrates with the clamor of big ideas, audaciously and exuberantly expressed. Like Invisible Man Ralph Ellison's landmark novel of 1952, Topdog/Underdog considers nothing less than the existential traps of being African-American and male in the United States, the masks that wear the men as well as vice versa. But don't think for a second that Ms. Parks is delivering a lecture or reciting a ponderous poem. Under the bravura direction of George C. Wolfe, a man who understands that showmanship and intellectual substance are not mutually exclusive, 'Topdog/Underdog' is a deeply theatrical experience.[11]
The play won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The Pulitzer committee wrote of the play:
"A darkly comic fable of brotherly love and family identity, Topdog/Underdog tells the story of Lincoln and Booth, two brothers whose names, given to them as a joke, foretell a lifetime of sibling rivalry and resentment. Haunted by their past, the brothers are forced to confront the shattering reality of their future."[12]
Topdog/Underdog topped a 2018 list by The New York Times of the greatest American plays of the past 25 years.[13] Andy Propst of Time Out ranked it the 24th greatest play ever written.[14]
