What a dream of a play! As a jazzed-up black and queer riff on Hamlet, or more accurately its use of some basic plot points as a whizzing starting point, James Ijames’ Pulitzer Prize-winner Fat Ham hits all the beats.
More hilarious than tragic, this one-acter skips, runs, fumbles a little, then skips again, taking flight in unpredictable ways. (As enjoyable as it is, I’m not sure this pumped-up sitcom should have won a Pulitzer, but there we are. It didn’t win any of its five Tony Award nominations in 2023.) But you can’t deny its fun factor. It is an audience-pleaser without question.
We’re at a Southern backyard cookout to celebrate the hasty marriage between Rev, a boisterous bully (Joseph “Joe P.” Palmore, wondrously bombastic), and Tedra, a sex-pot smitten by his smarmy charms (Shawanna Renee Rivon, delicious). The backyard with its cheap festive decorations is deliriously tacky as only master designer Ryan McGettigan could conjure it.
Rev is the brother of Pap, dead former owner of a popular rib joint. Juicy (Tyler Ray Lewis in soft-boil modulated perfection) is Pap’s and Tedra’s son, who is none too happy over the quickie marriage. Young, queer, black, and fat, or what’s called “thicc” in hip-hop, Juicy lives at home and is enrolled online at the University of Phoenix, which receives its own joke. With his press-on nails, braided topknot, and arched eyebrows, he’s “soft,” continually demeaned by Rev as a sissy, a little spit. Among the slings and arrows, Juicy barely holds his own, but he’s adamant about not following in these men’s footsteps. As Juicy, Lewis is as imposing as an Easter Island moai.
Before you can say Great Caesar’s Ghost, Juicy is haunted by Pap (also played by Palmore) who reveals that Rev ordered him murdered in prison. “Avenge me,” he cries. Juicy is as conflicted as is the Prince of Denmark over the marriage of his uncle Claudius to his mother Queen Gertrude. Because Pap was also a bully, unloving and mean as Rev, Juicy hesitates.
Ijames whirls through twists and turns that aren’t in the original, but everything’s close enough so we can appreciate the clever diversions. Snippets of the Bard slip in and out of scenes, the famous “What is a man” is quoted verbatim, and often the actors speak directly to us in asides. “Aye, there’s the rub,” gets its own comedic star turn.
Juicy’s weed-loving friend Tio (a divinely inspired performance from Brandon J. Morgan) offers wacky advice and some sort of condolence, but he’s all for offing Rev. His hopped-up monologue about an erotic encounter with a virtual gingerbread man stops the show. He’s brilliant in all the details.
Church lady Rabby with son Larry, a handsome ram-rod Marine, and eye-rolling daughter Opal, who hates wearing a skirt, albeit a very short one, arrive at the barbecue. (Think of a female Polonius, old buddy Laertes, and young innocent Ophelia, only refracted through Alice’s wonderland mirror.)
Terri Renee, in L.A. Clevenson’s Sunday best outfit of tight flouncy red with blinding white fascinator, is your devout churchgoer from a revival meeting you don’t want to attend. She raises her hands in jubilation, shouting out benedictions as if yelling to a neighbor across the clothesline. Renee is magnificently funny. Jarred Tettey is your picture-perfect soldier. (Remember his stop-the-presses turns in The Legend of Georgia McBride, The Green Book, or The Royale?) When alone with his old friend Juicy, Larry is filled with unspoken attraction as he yearns to say something just out of reach. He will break through later. Wait until you see how he shows it – all rainbows and kinky boots.
Ciara Anderson’s Opel is much more feisty than Shakespeare’s virginal hothouse flower, but she won’t be constrained by her mom’s rules and regulations. She wants to break free. Her dream job is to open a shooting range. Anderson has spirit to spare and a lively innocence that flows right through us.
This ensemble cast is perfect. They play it broad when the scene should be played broad and then play it heartbreaking a moment later. The comedy flows in great waves thanks to the warm pinpoint direction from Derek Charles Livingston, artistic director of Stages. The pacing is finely tuned like a chamber orchestra, where each player in the septet has his solo, yet each blends effortlessly into the whole. The characters are so rich in personality and so richly acted that the play fairly dances by, although the karaoke scene is too obvious and the final dance of acceptance goes on a beat too long.
Ijames’ message for his young queer characters just finding themselves, for his parental ones already set on their path, and for his audience, of course, is neatly stated by a very stoned Tio: Choose pleasure over harm. Be nice, embrace your softness. No need to be toxic to be your true self. Would Shakespeare appreciate Fat Ham? I think he’d laugh the loudest.
Fat Ham continues through May 23 at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays; and 2:30 p.m. Sundays at Spring Street Studios, 1824 Spring Street. For more information, call 832-767-4991 or visit 4thwalltheatreco.com. $40-$70.
