Studio Theatre’s production, directed by Taylor Reynolds, begins a bit sluggishly, as Ijames and the cast lay down the mechanics of the Shakespearean plot, reborn as a turbulent afternoon at a backyard barbecue. Each funny twist, though, feeds the comic momentum, leading to a dynamite finish and, let’s just say, the contemplation of what wonderful use Shakespeare might have made of a karaoke machine.
Still, you don’t have to love “Hamlet” to get a lot out of “Fat Ham” (even if it pains me to have to offer this caveat about one of Western drama’s greatest plays). Ijames is shrewd about the linkage, providing a few verbatim soliloquies to satisfy “Hamlet” fans yet managing to make the script his own unique investigation of fathers and sons. Hamlet, for instance, traverses an inexorably tragic path out of love for his father; Juicy skirts tragedy in part because he is so unlike his unlovable father.
Ijames fills out Juicy’s world with six other vitally alive characters, and one dead one. They gather for a celebration of the all-too-abrupt wedding of Tedra and Rev, following the prison slaying of Juicy’s father, Pap, himself a murderer. Pap’s ghost (also played by Reid, in a white suit that lights up like a Christmas tree) materializes to urge the reluctant Juicy to avenge him, as another family — modeled on Polonius and his progeny — joins the festivities: overbearing Rabby (Kelli Blackwell) and her grown children, Larry (Matthew Elijah Webb) and Opal (Gaelyn D. Smith).
The playwright posits Juicy as a Hamlet-adjacent symbol of Gen Z ambivalence — a young person adrift in the culture, with only vague job plans and a reluctance to deal with his family’s toxicity. Selfish Tedra, played by Gary as a woman desperately clinging to her fading desirability, is thoughtlessly cruel about Juicy’s future: She blows his tuition money on a bathroom renovation for Rev.
Yet Juicy can’t let go. He’s psychologically frozen. Sporting a T-shirt with “Mama’s Boy” spelled out in rhinestones, he’s called on to sing at the party. The song he chooses is about feeling alone and lost: Radiohead’s “Creep.” “But I’m a creep. I’m a weirdo,” he sings, in a small voice. “What the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here.”
Ijames writes that sense of disconnection into the personalities of Juicy’s peers: Larry, a Marine with no love of the military, and Opal, a lesbian forced by overbearing Rabby to wear a frilly party dress that drives her to distraction. (Another outfit of that variety, and Opal might be propelled into Ophelia-like madness.) They’re bound by frustration, by a need to offload the burdens of their parents’ misdeeds and expectations — a breaking free that Webb’s fabulous Larry ultimately carries off with style.
All the performances radiate style, even that of Juicy’s sidekick, Tio (Thomas Walter Booker), a goofy riff on Horatio. The design aspects, too, are excellent, with Jean Kim conjuring a realistic patio set, strung with party lights and furnished with grill and lawn chairs, on which the tale of Rev’s comeuppance plays out. Danielle Preston’s costumes add a bit of sparkle, when the playwright deliciously invites it.
Gibson does a swell job with the direct-address speeches lifted from the Elizabethan master. I liked the sly nods to him, but maybe most of all Juicy’s retort to Rev after he boasts about his spicy prep work for the ribs. “Ah,” Juicy replies, “there’s the rub.” To be or not to be that clever.
Fat Ham, by James Ijames. Directed by Taylor Reynolds. Set, Jean Kim; costumes, Danielle Preston; lighting, Minjoo Kim; sound and music, Sinan Refik Zafar. About 90 minutes. Through Dec. 17 at Studio Theatre, 1501 14th St. NW. studiotheatre.org.