Juicy is busy with decorations at a family gathering when his father appears with demands. The two of them have never gotten along particularly well but what makes this encounter especially difficult is that his father is dead. It’s his ghost who’s decided his son should avenge him.
It’s the one-act 2022 Pulitzer Prize winning Fat Ham about to make its Houston debut in a 4th Wall Theatre Co. production. And if any of this sounds a bit familiar to you, then consult your Shakespeare, specifically Hamlet.
Playwright James Ijames has reset the story in modern times beginning with a Southern family barbecue. Instead of a Danish prince and heir to the throne, his main character Juicy is a Black queer college student who loves Shakespeare. And who has to decide whether he wants to continue his family’s never-ending cycle of violence.
It is a comedy, albeit a dark one, with frequent use of the “N” word. 4th Wall Artistic Director Jennifer Dean tried repeatedly to get the rights to it but when she did, she says she knew she wasn’t the one to direct it. So, she asked Derek Charles Livingston, Artistic Director at Houston’s Stages theater, whose background includes his time as Director of New Play Development and Interim Artistic Director at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. (Livingston had wanted Fat Ham for Stages, but 4th Wall got to it first.)
“It’s a brilliant play. The handling of the language, the reimagining of Hamlet and how he weaves that in is just so creative,” Dean said. “To totally place it with a different community of people and culture, it’s fun but it’s also got a lot of depth to it. I thought it was just a beautifully done play.”
As the play opens, “We are in the backyard of Juicy’s family’s home. He is decorating for a barbecue to celebrate the wedding of his mother to his uncle. May sound familiar. So Juicy is not celebrating,” Livingston says. “Much like Hamlet, Juicy is conflicted about that matrimony. The ghost comes and visits him and says ‘Your uncle killed me. Avenge it.’
“Juicy is in a very conflicted relationship with his father whereas in Shakespeare it was much more a relationship full of reverence for his father. So Juicy is in a position of feeling a need to avenge somebody for whom he has feelings that are unresolved. And a relationship with his uncle for whom he also has unresolved feelings.
“I think that gives it a complexity that isn’t in the origin text,” Livingston says.
“So the question for Juicy is: ‘My father wasn’t all that great. Why do I need to care about him to avenge him?’ “Much like Hamlet has Horatio, Ijames has given us Tio, a sort of cousin figure who helps Juicy process and offers him some advice.”
Besides the setting and the family relationships, there are other areas where Juicy differs from Prince Hamlet. “This is a Hamlet who’s a bit of a fighter as well,” Livingston says. Another aspect pointed out by both Dean and Livingston is that Juicy is pretty heavy but it’s not seen as a drawback. “To have that character be triumphant and dynamic and even to be held as physically attractive in that body is something I never could have imagined,” says Livingston.
“It’s really funny and when it is not funny it is really profound,” he adds. “I think the language thatIjames himself is using is really beautiful and then I think where he mixes it with Shakespeare I think appeals to those who are sort of intellectual Shakespeare lovers but also to those of us who just appreciate the meter and rhythm and the emotional pull that’s actually in Shakespeare’s language. I think it is a chance to see a play that celebrates America and being American in a very particular way. This play happens here and now.
“It’s just a lot of fun to note the parallels, the Easter eggs, the use of the actual Shakespearean text in the play. And just laughing at some of the lines,” Livingston says. “The references to Yorick and ‘Ah, there’s the rub,’ But how they happen in a different way than the original.
Tyler Ray Lewis plays Juicy and others in the seven-member cast include Shawanna Renee Rivon, Joseph “Joe P” Palmore, Ciara Anderson, Jarred Tettey, Terri Renee and Brandon Morgan.
“I love the idea of getting grander plays and putting them in our [smaller] space,” Dean says. “Where you’re very close to the audience so you can’t hide behind things. It makes it so raw. Juicy talks to the audience just like Hamlet talks to the audience. We have just recently done Hamlet so for our audiences to see them somewhat close in proximity I thought was really fun. And I just love highlighting different groups of playwrights and it hadn’t been done here yet.”
“Ijames who was an actor before he became a playwright, said he was always fascinated by the story of Hamlet and found himself returning to it often and wondered how could Hamlet speak to a contemporary audience?” Livingston relates. “What could he possibly say? As someone who is Black and queer as he describes himself the opportunity to place this play within that identity and the Southern milieu really spoke to him.
Performances of Fat Ham are scheduled for May 1-23 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.
