FAT HAM
Shakespeare is like a cheat code for modern writers. Trying to figure out a plot? Need a title that sounds fantastic even if it doesn’t really make sense? Want to show off how clever you are by making little changes that smart people will nod at, feeling a little more clever themselves?
Rob the most stolen-from author of all time: SHAKESPEARE.
If the Shakespeare cheat code is overused, it’s because there are plenty of successful examples: The Lion King, Throne of Blood, 10 Things I Hate About You, and countless Romeos and/or Juliets.
But until Friday, I’d never seen Shakespeare like I did in James Ijames’ Fat Ham. Imagine, if you will, Prince Hamlet, a moody scholar visited by his murdered father’s ghost in a quest for vengeance against his uncle (who just married Hamlet’s mom). Great. Now, imagine that if it all went down at a black, gay, southern barbecue.
Did you imagine it as fantastic? Good! Because it was. The measuring stick for a lot of Shakespeare adaptations is simple: Does the adaptation use Shakespeare’s work to say something interesting? And Fat Ham has a lot to say about fathers and sons, queerness and straightness, expectations and choices. Where Hamlet struggled with ethics and doubt, Fat Ham protagonist Juicy adds extra layers to those dilemmas. What does he owe to a father who never accepted him? Is there a way out of cyclical violence? Why can’t he just get a Human Resources degree and go do Human Resources???
What else is there to say? The script is tight. All of the characters get a little extra focus and love that helps round them out and bring them to the modern day. And there’s a soliloquy about a VR video game that both encapsulates the themes of the entire play and manages to be the funniest thing I’ve seen on a stage in about five years.
I just saw the show at Playmakers Repertory Company in Chapel Hill, NC, but you can buy the script online or see if you can find it in the theaters near you. Until then, remember what Shakespeare tells us: In that sleep of death, what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause… but don’t sleep on Fat Ham, this sh*t is such a fun night out.