How best to describe Fat Ham? How about: “An ingenious theatrical intersection of Shakespearean Drama and Black Joy.”
Playwright James Ijames won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize winner for drama with Fat Ham, which cooks up a comically contemporary and playful LGBTQ+ riff on Shakespeare’s towering tragedy of Hamlet. And this celebratory regional premiere co-produced by the Goodman Theatre and Definition Theatre is full of good times throughout.
Rather than gloomy Denmark, Fat Ham kicks off at a summer backyard wedding reception somewhere in the U.S. South (Ijames hints at select states in the Playbill). That’s where the grieving queer college student Juicy (Trumane Alston) and his stoner friend, Tio (Victor Musoni), are visited by a ghostly apparition who prods them to seek murderous revenge.
Juicy’s not-so-sympathetic late father, BBQ chef and restaurant owner Pap (Ronald L. Conner), accuses his brother, Rev (also not-so-sympathetic and also played by Conner), of plotting his assassination in prison. Pap is doubly outraged, since Rev has also just married Juicy’s mother, Tedra (a very confident Anji White).
But like the melancholy title Dane of Hamlet, Juicy is struck with indecision at avenging Pap’s death. Pap and Rev both have manipulative and openly homophobic past histories, and Juicy’s mom appears to be happy. So, Juicy is torn.
The arrival of wedding reception guests complicate matters even more. Tedra’s air raid siren of a friend, Rabby (a hilariously unfiltered E. Faye Butler), brings her two grown children who have yet to fully come out of the closet. There’s the Marine veteran Larry (Sheldon L. Brown) who isn’t at all comfortable at being “soft,” and the mama-appeasing Opal (Ireon Roach) who can’t stand wearing her reception dress.
Much of the fun of Fat Ham for Shakespeare scholars will be seeing which of Ijames’ characters parallel those of the original Bard, and just how the plot devices of Hamlet get updated to address contemporary concerns within Black communities. But audiences who don’t get enough Shakespeare in their diets can also feast on the inherent fun of Fat Ham, since it has all the fresh mirth of a great modernized adaptation like director Amy Heckerling’s Austen-inspired 1995 film Clueless.
Like his past locally produced plays like Kill Move Paradise (staged by TimeLine Theatre in 2020) and The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington (at Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 2022), Ijames is not adverse to injecting key moments of fantasy into Fat Ham beyond the built-in supernatural business of Hamlet. Not only are Juicy’s soliloquies time-stopping, but other characters are suspicious that they’re being bad-mouthed during them so they subsequently have to set the story straight.
Definition Theatre Founding Artistic Director Tyrone Phillips has created a rollicking and raucous production with the cast and crew of Fat Ham. Set designer Arnel Sancianco and lighting designer Jason Lynch revel in the opportunity for doing so many theatrical special effects tied to the ghost, while costume designer Jos N. Banks injects a great camp sensibility to define the characters by their often outrageous outfits.
Performance-wise, not everyone in the cast is operating on the same level. For example, very few folks can match E. Faye Butler, who rightful takes up space whenever her steamrolling Rabby steps out on stage. Other actors whose characters have a stronger sense of self (like White’s no-nonsense Tedra and Musoni’s spacey Tio) also pop on stage more than those who are harboring secrets (or not projecting their dialogue as clearly as they could).
As Juicy, Trumane Alston gave a tentative performance on opening night that didn’t feel as fully grounded in the indecisive character as I would have liked. But this just shows how difficult it is to truly inhabit Hamlet—either in the Shakespeare original or as Juicy, his contemporary American descendant. Hopefully Alston’s take on Juicy will grow as the run of Fat Ham continues.
So, there’s a great time to be had with Fat Ham. Ijames expertly shows how adapt he is at comically spicing up Shakespeare, and audiences should be truly well-nourished by everything the Goodman and Definition Theatre have finely set out on the table.
The Goodman Theatre and Definition Theatre co-production of Fat Ham has been extended to Sunday, March 2, in the Goodman’s Owen Theatre at 170 N. Dearborn St. Tickets are $25 to $85 (increases might come into effect with dynamic pricing). Call 312-443-3800 or visit GoodmanTheatre.org for more information.