The challenge for a theater critic is to tell just enough about a play or musical to whet the reader’s appetite without giving away its secrets.
But in the case of James Ijames’ Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy-drama “Fat Ham,” it’s almost a sin to write too much about what happens in this play.
When I first saw it on Broadway in 2022, I arrived like any other rush-ticket holder knowing only that Ijames based his play on Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” but set the story at a contemporary Black family’s backyard barbecue in the American South. So I was both stunned and thrilled by this hilarious, surprising, magical, poetic, moving and celebratory play.
On Thursday, I witnessed that same reaction at the Old Globe, where a re-staged version of the Broadway production opened to an equally surprised and thrilled audience — who were so enraptured with the lead actor’s soul-baring performance of Radiohead’s self-loathing ballad “Creep” that they gave him a standing ovation mid-show.
Ijames is a Black American playwright who performed the title role in a college production of “Hamlet” about the same time he was figuring out his own queer sexuality.
In Shakespeare’s play, the Danish prince Hamlet is torn by indecision after the ghost of his murdered father, the Danish king, orders his son to kill his usurper, Hamlet’s uncle, who has stolen the crown and married the queen.
In “Fat Ham,” the Hamlet character is Juicy, a soft-hearted queer college student torn over whether to heed his father’s demand for revenge and repeat the cycle of violence and toxic masculinity that have marked the men in his family for generations.
That sounds heavy, and it is, but the story plays out in the most unexpected ways, with actors breaking the fourth wall to interact with the audience, karaoke, charades, ghostly special effects and an eye-popping finale.
But beyond the play’s visual and theatrical dazzle — director Sideeq Heard has remounted Saheem Ali’s original Broadway staging — the script’s language is rich and even gorgeous in places. Ijames cleverly and humorously weaves original lines, soliloquies and scenes from “Hamlet” with modern language and situations and the poetry of sexual longing. Even if you’ve never seen “Hamlet,” Juicy’s wink-wink asides will keep you in the loop.
The charades scene in the Old Globe’s “Fat Ham.”
(Courtesy of Rich Soublet II)
As Juicy, Ṣọla Fadiran has a gentle, easygoing sweetness that disguises his inner rage and conflict. Felicia Boswell is a standout as Juicy’s flashy and wacky mother, Tedra, who is romantically drawn to violent and controlling men, but unconditionally adores her “soft” son. Ethan Henry is fierce and funny as both Juicy’s late father, Pap, and his cruel stepfather, Rev. The singularly named actor m is perfectly deadpan as family friend Opal, a miserable young woman secretly attracted to other women. Tian Richards shows restraint and then liberation as Opal’s brother Larry, a U.S. Marine who despises violence. Yvette Cason amuses as Rabby, Opal and Larry’s disapproving mom. And Xavier Pacheco is a quirky scene-stealer as Juicy’s pot-smoking cousin, Tio.
With its adult sexual themes and language, “Fat Ham” is a bit outside the Old Globe’s usual theatrical boundaries. But it’s a great play, it honors the Globe’s Shakespearean roots and it is helping the Globe attract a new, younger and more diverse audience.
‘Fat Ham’
When: 7 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays. Through June 23
Where: Old Globe Theatre, 1363 Old Globe Way, Balboa Park, San Diego
Tickets: $35 and up
Phone: (619) 234-5623
Online: theoldglobe.org