FAT HAM HATH POWER TO ASSUME A PLEASING SHAPE
American playwright James Ijames has written a funny and thoughtful play based on the Shakespeare tragedy Hamlet. The work carries the unlikely title of Fat Ham and it is playing at the Old Globe Theatre where it is doing sell-out business straight through to its closing date on June 23.
Ṣọla Fadiran as Juicy, Yvette Cason as Rabby, and Xavier Pacheco as Tio
Fat Ham won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for drama. The Pulitzer committee praised the play as a “funny, poignant play that deftly transposes Hamlet to a family barbeque in the American South to grapple with questions of identity, kinship, responsibility, and honesty.” Fair enough, but I liked the play more as an original comedy performed with bull’s-eye humor by a terrific versatile all-black eight-player ensemble. There is serious material in the play, but Ijames’s one-of-a-kind humor really sends the show to the top of the class.
Ṣọla Fadiran
Fat Ham centers on Juicy, a young gay black man who is uneasy in his life. Juicy is the Hamlet figure, surrounded by an assortment of characters adapted from the Bard’s original. They are Tedra (the Gertrude figure), Rabby (a female Polonius), Opal (Ophelia), Tio (Horatio), Larry (Laertes), the Rev (Claudius) and Pap (the ghost of Hamlet’s murdered father).
m as Opal and Ṣọla Fadiran as Juicy
Patrons shouldn’t fret if the character names mean nothing to them. Viewers familiar with Hamlet should have fun matching up the Shakespeare figures with the Ijames re-creations, but even those with no knowledge of the originals will have a fine time in the company of this freshly minted version.
The cast of Fat Ham, 2024
Ijames supplies nearly all of the dialogue, allowing for a few shards of Shakespeare poetry. The playwright continuous a flare for southern black comic dialect that delighted the enthusiastic opening night audience throughout the intermissionless 100-minute performance. Language that may seem routine on the printed page sizzles with down-home wit heard live.
The cast of Fat Ham, 2024
The script is peppered with puns and jokes, including plenty of salty humor. But Ijames does provide serious explorations of sexuality, family bonding, and family betrayal. There are also clever visual scenes, like the characters acting out of the death of Hamlet’s father as a game of charades.
Ṣọla Fadiran as Juicy, Ethan Henry as Pap, and Felicia Boswell as Tedra
There is plenty of emotional intensity interspersed with the wisecracks. Still, by the end of the show it is the lighter material that stuck with me. The show meandered a bit early on, but then new characters made their appearances, injecting comic as well as dramatic acceleration into the production.
Ṣọla Fadiran as Juicy
The acting honor role starts with Ṣọla Fadiran, the bulky and shabbily dressed Juicy, who comes across as a sensitive and perplexed young man who can’t figure out how he fits into a world where the ghost of his murdered father demands that he avenge the patricide. It’s an exceptional performance, especially in competition with such an abundance of high energy acting from the other characters.
Ṣọla Fadiran as Juicy and Felicia Boswell as Tedra
The remainder of the exemplary cast consists of Felicia Boswell as the jiving Tedra (Gertrude), Yvette Cason as Rabby (Polonius), “m” as Opal (Ophelia wallowing in attitude), Xavier Pacheco as Tio (Horatio), Tian Richards as Larry (Laertes), and Ethan Henry in the dual roles of the Rev and Pap.
m as Opal, Xavier Pacheco as Tio, Tian Richards as Larry, and Ṣọla Fadiran as Juicy
Sideeq Heard is the director who blends the abundant parts into a such an original whole. Maruti Evans is the scenic designer, Bradley King is the lighting designer, Dominique Fawn Hill is the costume designer, and Mikaal Sulaiman is the sound designer. Skylar Fox designed the special effects, including a few supernatural jolts that elicited some squeals from startled patrons. Caparelliotis Casting earns a cheer for assembling such a perfectly meshed ensemble.
The cast of Fat Ham, 2024
Shakespeare’s Hamlet ends in an on-stage bloodbath. At the Old Globe, the show ends with everyone on stage in a wild high-stepping chorus — with a confetti shower from the rafters — that had the audience roaring. An exuberant, fitting conclusion to a special play.
Tian Richards as Larry
photos by Rich Soublet II
Fat Ham
The Old Globe
Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage, 1363 Old Globe Way in Balboa Park
90 minutes without an intermission
ends on June 23, 2024
for tickets (starting at $29), call 619.234-5623 or visit The Old Globe
