Review: Tender and Meaty: FAT HAM Reimagines Shakespeare’s Classic with a Twist

Photos by Evan Michael Woods

Fat Ham

By James Ijames

Directed by vicki washington

Produced by Stage West and Dallas Theater Center

Rating: R

Run time: 150 minutes (with 15 minute intermission)

Accessible seating: Available

Hearing Devices: Available

Sensory-friendly Performance: Not Available

ASL Performance: September 11

Sound level: Comfortable Volume 

Audio/Visuals to prepare for: adult language; descriptions of murder, violence, incarceration, military PTSD, and suicidal ideation; homophobic language and attitudes; simulated intoxication; audio of pornographic video; several acts of onstage violence; and a simulated onstage death by choking.

 

Reviewed by Bradford Reilly

 

Truth be told, there are only seven plots that humanity repeats over and over again, and it is these seven plots that are embedded within thousands of years and infinite variations of art, poetry, novels, and theatre. It is often in the retelling of these plots that new insight can be derived. Fresh perspectives make the retelling of these plots worthwhile. James Ijames’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play Fat Ham is such an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and the Stage West production, directed by vickie washington, creates a frequently hilarious, honest, and moving evening of theatre rooted in the journeys of people figuring out who they are existentially and how they can become the best versions of themselves with the tools at their disposal.

 

The play takes place at a family barbecue, celebrating the marriage of Rev and Tedra (played by Calvin Gabriel and Nikka Morton as parallels to Claudio and Gertrude). Our Hamlet, a black, queer young adult named Juicy (played by Taylor Ray Lewis) opens the show decorating the quickly patched-together event with birthday balloons and Christmas lights with his decidedly altered childhood friend Tio (played by Zachary J Willis). During the set up, the ghost of Juicy’s father, Pap (also played by Calvin Gabriel) reveals to Juicy that while he was in prison for killing a man, his brother Rev sent an inmate to shank Pap, and that Juicy should lean into his violent lineage, avenge his father, and kill his uncle. As Juicy says in one of his soliloquies “It gets dark between fathers and sons when the chemistry ain’t right.” Pap was hard, Juicy is soft.

 

And so, Juicy must make a decision: harden or remain soft. Throughout the play, we see what it means to harden, what it means to soften, what it means to lie to yourself, and what it means to thine own self be true. That dichotomy is seen between an elder and a younger generation.

 

Played by the same actor, Pap and Rev are tough and hardened men, and put on that carapace to cover up a much weaker interior. Calvin Gabriel’s Pap is haunting, but laughable (he can’t touch Juicy because he’s a ghost!) while his Rev is homophobic, misogynistic, dangerous, and rough, but is as pig headed and fall off the bone as the swine he smokes. 

 

The Polonius parallel, Rabby (played by Cherish Love), is a rigidly religious, judgmental, proper, and controlling mother of two. She’s still fun, though (a Charades expert hiding solo shot glasses in her Mary Poppins faux designer bag.) Cherish Love’s portrayal is so much fun and brought welcome flavor to Fat Ham’s rub, with excellent ad libs and reactions that can only be seen, not described.

 

The softest of the elders is Nikki Morton’s Tedra. She is a person who swings from one relationship to its brother. When asked if she misses her husband, she replies with “My memory won’t let me miss him.” And yet in the beginning of the play, we see her give way to Rev’s hardness. We see through the honeymoon period, and the abusive relationship she gets swooped into. It’s a generational trauma she can’t get away from, because (as a foil to her son) she doesn’t like being with her thoughts—commotion makes her happy. She needs noise. Morton plays Tedra with painful depth as she spins plates to maintain her own happiness. Her Tedra isn’t living in good chemistry, and leans into the hardness her true self so desperately wishes to reject. 

 

The youth of the play seem more in tune with their true selves. Rabby’s two children, Opal and Larry (Ophelia and Laertes), perhaps lean into hardness, but in two wildly different and subversive ways. Opal, played by Jori Jackson, is a lesbian who loves slaughterhouse work and dreams of owning a gun ranch. She suffers because she is expected to be soft yet she knows who she is. Though Jackson’s Opal is direct and butch, her hardness does not come at the expense of others. Larry on the other hand, played by Caleb Mosley, is in the military, home from service. He has lived a life that cultivates hardness. Mosley’s portrayal of Larry, however, yearns to soften the hard expectation forced upon him. He is obviously closeted, not hiding his eyes for Juicy, doing everything but admitting who he is. He suffers because he has leaned into societal expectation, but lives counter to the softness he wishes to be.

 

Zachary J Willis’ Tio on the other hand is an outsider to this family drama, and becomes part of the action like Kimmy Gibbler in Full House. Willis’ Tio likes his vices, and is content in being a philosopher of his own brand. And, boy the man has INSIGHT.  Tio is sure of who he is and fully rejects societal expectation of him—especially when he is high—and lives in good chemistry because of it.

 

So, if the elders plus Larry live in bad chemistry with themselves, Opal lives in bad chemistry with society, and Tio lives in good chemistry because he lives and thinks for himself (and not at the expense of others), this lays the environment and ground work for Juicy’s journey. Taylor Ray Lewis’ Juicy is not tragic because he is queer. Lewis’ Juicy is actually firm and confident in his queerness! Lewis’ Juicy isn’t tragic because he is a black man. Juicy isn’t necessarily tragic at all!  Juicy’s conflict is because his queerness is at odds with blackness and what blackness means to older generations. Taylor Ray Lewis plays with this conflict masterfully. We go with them in Juicy’s soliloquies and asides, we go with them in his abstractions and dreams. We go with them as he faces the conflict at the crossroads between queer and black, between “other” with the rest of the world. It is an existential question begging to be answered, because how we interact with the world around us depends on it. 

 

Stage West and Dallas Theater Center have joined together in this incredible production of Fat Ham, in which I highly recommend! Fat Ham runs until September 14. Get on over to Fort Worth and see it. I suggest ordering the wedding cupcakes at the bar . 

 

Enjoy the show!

Bradford Reilly