This is a show thick with resonance and, of course, cleverly self-protected from assaults from within and without. You can enjoy it on very many different levels, which (ironically) is what Broadway has tried to achieve since time immemorial.
Fat Ham
Opening Night: April 12, 2023
Theater: American Airlines
Website: www.fathambroadway.com
Juicy is a queer, Southern college kid, already grappling with some serious questions of identity, when the ghost of his father shows up in their backyard, demanding that Juicy avenge his murder. But here’s the rub! Revenge doesn’t come easy to Juicy, a sensitive and self-aware young Black man in search of his own happiness and liberation. From an uproarious family cookout emerges a compelling examination of love and loss, pain and joy.
BUY TICKETSREAD THE REVIEWS:
April 12, 2023
That “Fat Ham” achieves its happy, even joyful, ending honestly, without denying the weight of forces that make “Hamlet” feel just as honest, is a sign of how capacious and original the writing is, growing the skin of its own necessity instead of merely burrowing into Shakespeare’s. It’s also a sign of how beautifully the cast brings the writing to life.
READ THE REVIEWApril 13, 2023
Again, “Fat Ham” is a deceptively difficult play. It swirls realism and surrealism, ignores and interrogates its audience; it’s a historical adaptation with present-day references and futuristic idealization. Upon exiting the theater, I left with overwhelming admiration for Ijames’ ambition, rather than laughing and grooving out of my seat.
READ THE REVIEWApril 12, 2023
Like that relative who picks through the chicken parts at a family picnic to find the leg or the breast or the thigh with just the right amount of crisp, playwright James Ijames has no reluctance to rummage through the bones of Shakespeare’s Hamlet to cook up the irresistible Fat Ham.
READ THE REVIEWApril 12, 2023
But this is also a classic cookout, where bloodspill is generally limited to the slaughtered hog on the grill. Not to mention that “Fat Ham” is a total gas — the funniest and most invigorating new show on Broadway, where the acclaimed Public Theater production, co-produced with National Black Theatre, has opened after an Off Broadway run last year. Winner of the 2022 Pulitzer Prize, “Fat Ham” recasts its source material to imagine what Shakespeare did not — how people might overcome circumstances, expectations and their own demons to forge new paths through life.
READ THE REVIEWApril 12, 2023
As led by an excellent ensemble cast, the solid production (directed by Saheem Ali) successfully balances the play’s intimate emotional moments, terrific stagecraft (including surprise entrances and exits by the ghost) and far-out comedy.
READ THE REVIEWApril 12, 2023
The trouble is, when you rip out the tragedy and, for the most part, the main character’s propulsive rage and manufactured madness, you’re left with a rather aimless story that leaves its audience feeling hungry for some meat. And empty carbs — the decent humor and overwrought poetry — are not enough to fill the void.
READ THE REVIEWApril 12, 2023
In Fat Ham, James Ijames takes a Shakespearean tragedy and turns it into a modern-day comedy that explores the identity of a young man who’s trying to escape the toxic masculinity and violence that have plagued his family for generations. There’s a lot to admire in this 95-minute one-act, even if by the end we feel like we’ve tasted more honey glaze than meat.
READ THE REVIEWApril 12, 2023
Fat Ham is less about seeking revenge and more about Juicy winning justice. Spoiler alert: instead of a bloodbath, the play ends with a raucous disco and butterfly-shaped confetti. Now that’s how I like to see Shakespeare.
READ THE REVIEW
April 12, 2023
Conceptually, I’m right there with what Ijames is cooking up, but by the time that finale came around, I was left a little cold, craving some pulled pork but, instead, getting a takeout sandwich encased in too many layers of cling wrap.
READ THE REVIEWApril 12, 2023
Fat Ham is like A Fifth of Shakespeare. James Ijames’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play takes Hamlet — one of the Bard’s most quoted, performed, and adapted plays — and brings it squarely into the now, reflecting the exact moment we’re in, for better or for worse.
READ THE REVIEW
April 12, 2023
Directed with a bristling energy by Saheem Ali, Fat Ham doesn’t exactly reimagine Hamlet so much as take its skeins and outline and make something new.
READ THE REVIEW