STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Audiences are getting a lesson in brotherly love, hustling and the struggle to rise above in “Top Dog/Underdog,” the Pulitzer Prize winning play currently running at The Spot.

The play revolves around two brothers named Lincoln and Booth by their father. Lincoln, fittingly, makes a living portraying Abraham Lincoln at an arcade where he gets paid to be shot over and over by John Wilkes Booth pretenders.

His brother struggles to land a legitimate job and a girlfriend, although he is quite adept at shoplifting shiny dress shoes and men’s suits.

Lincoln, played by Mashall Mabry IV, foots the bill for himself and his brother by playing a white-faced Lincoln at a shooting arcade.

Booth figures hustling is his ticket to getting ahead in life and to that effect he is begging his brother to return to the life of Three Card Monte, a street con party Lincoln gave up after seeing one of his partners shot to death.

Marshall Mabry IV, who hails from Atlanta, Ga., and New York TV actor Chi Mancho are captivating in their roles uttering their lines with fierce intensity one moment, gut-splitting humor the next with a side of poetic language. The dark comedy also vacillates between brother love and hate bordering on the old Testament story of Cain and Abel.

The play’s co-directors Savina Barini and Roney Jones promised that audience members would leave changed. And you definitely will want some time to decompress after the last sentence is uttered.

The play is in its final weekend at The Spot, 220 Lewis St. in Ketchum.

Booth thinks he can make it big at Three Card Monte, a street hustling game where players bet they can pick the red card.

Tonight’s production is sold out, but tickets are still available for the 7 p.m. Saturday, April 18, show and the 6 p.m. Sunday, April 19 show. They’re available at https://ci.ovationtix.com/35975/production/1269724.

The play is filled with brotherly humor and some infighting, as well.

Booth tries to persuade his brother to return to Three Card Monte where Lincoln was a rock star at playing cards.