Canadian Stage/Fat Ham, written by James Ijames, directed by Philip Akin, Berkeley Street Theatre, closes Mar. 16. Tickets here.
Sometimes it happens that a great divide opens up between me and a cultural and critical darling. Such is my lack of boundless enthusiasm for the Canadian Stage production of James Ijames’ acclaimed 2021 play Fat Ham.
To really show just how behind the eight ball I am, Fat Ham won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
That being said, there is much to recommend in Fat Ham, but while legions of audiences find the play a laugh-out-loud, brilliant tragicomedy, I find it only mildly amusing, despite some clever aspects.
I actually looked up the Pulitzer citation as announced by administrator Marjorie Miller, which reads, “A funny, poignant play that deftly transposes Hamlet to a family barbecue in the American South to grapple with questions of identity, kinship, responsibility and honesty.”
I agree in principle, if not in overwhelming admiration.
The Ijames Innovations
While the characters and plot points of Hamlet are evident in Fat Ham, the playwright has given Shakespeare’s magnum opus a mighty shake up.
For example, the melancholy Dane has been transformed into the more optimistic Juicy (Peter Fernandes), a sweet, lovable, queer, thicc guy coping with his insecurities while trying to define his identity in a toxic world. He’s studying Human Resources at an online university, which his family disparagingly refer to as a “laptop university”, corrected by Juicy to “desktop”.
The setting is a backyard BBQ to celebrate the hasty marriage of Juicy’s mother Tedra (Raven Dauda) to Juicy’s uncle Rev (David Alan Anderson who also plays Pop, the ghost of Juicy’s father). Pop wants revenge because he believes his brother Rev had him killed. Pop died in prison after being stabbed by a sharpened toothbrush. Pop’s crime? Murder.
I have to admit that it was fun seeing how Ijames transformed Shakespeare’s well-known characters. The playwright also included Shakespearean soliloquies and asides in the script for good measure.
Tio (Tony Ofori), Horatio’s clone, is a philosophical druggie. His first soliloquy is wondering if porn is right for him, and later, on a drug-fuelled high, he fantasizes about sexual pleasure with gingerbread men.
Polonius is now a lady — the prim and proper, church-going Rabby (Nehassaiu deGannes). Her son Larry (Tawiah M’Carthy) is a stiff, monosyllabic marine suffering from PTSD. Rough and tough suicidal daughter Opal (Virgilia Griffith)has been forced to wear a dress which she hides under a hoodie while defiantly sporting heavy shoes.
In other words, Ijames has reversed the personalities of brash, confident Laertes and the fragile uber-feminine Ophelia.
Fat Ham is a play about gender-bending, so it transpires that Larry is trans, with feelings for Juicy, while Opal likes girls.
And then there is bombastic, bullying, hard nosed Uncle Rev, who keeps telling Juicy that the men in the family are hard and strong and manly, while Juicy is weak. (He wears a T-shirt with the writing Momma’s Boy.)
Juicy is also much put upon, and his crass, vulgar mother, who really does care for her son, expects him to hold the family together.
“You don’t get to grow crazy,” she tells him.
Nonetheless, it doesn’t stop her and Rev from stealing Juicy’s tuition money to renovate the bathroom, which he just accepts.
From time to time, Ijames has his anti-hero Juicy address the audience directly, mostly to explain what’s going on or to rationalize someone’s bad behaviour. He even quotes Shakespeare as he takes us into his confidence. He also has serious reservations about killing his uncle. Revenge does not come naturally to him.
While all this appears to be heavy stuff, the meanness and cruelty stay mostly submerged under the superficial nature of the play which is bright and light, despite the odd occasional emotional moment.
The Humour
There are some genuinely funny happenings in Fat Ham.
In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the ruse to catch the conscience of the king is to have the travelling actors perform a play that reenacts the murder of Hamlet’s father. Juicy’s modus operandi is a game of charades that goes all wrong.
While we don’t get Juicy reciting “To be or not to be”, we do get another reference from this most famous of soliloquies.
Chef Rev at the BBQ brags that the key to good ribs is the spice rub, which gives Juicy the perfect opportunity to say, “Ah, there’s the rub”.
There is also a karaoke sing along after dinner. (Tedra got the machine on sale from Amazon.) She performs a rousing, sexy, come-on version of Taylor Dayne’s “Tell It To My Heart” executed by Dauda as an eye-popping song and dance routine.
Juicy is urged to perform a heartfelt version of “Creep” by Radiohead accompanied by pathetic, if humorous, choreography that does charm the house.
From an acting point of view, you can see that director Akin has bathed this production in love, both in breathing life into the characters and welding the actors into a real family with strong connections between them.
The Playwright’s Intentions
The takeaway from Fat Ham is that the younger generation is breaking the cycle of generational violence. As Tio tells Juicy, don’t let it define you.
Juicy does finally find his moxie, and while Shakespeare’s Hamlet ended in a blood bath, Juicy makes sure that Fat Ham finishes with a life-affirming wild disco party.
Nobody has to die, Juicy tells us. The younger set don’t have to follow the rules and conventions that keep them down. As Polonius said to Laertes, “To thine own self be true”, and this is the new mantra that they adopt.
Incidentally, my giving away the ending is perfectly okay. Ijames revealed the “Black Joy” in every interview.
Problems and Weaknesses
So, what am I missing?
First of all — language. The cast speaks in a Southern Black vernacular, and at a blistering pace, so I missed some of the dialogue. If they can flash the lyrics during karaoke, they could have had surtitles for the performance. I wanted to hear every word and I’m disappointed that I couldn’t.
Second. Although many of the conversations and incidents in the play are bizarre or slapstick or off-the-wall, they generate the farcical humour in the play, and I found some of the antics to be almost juvenile.
Third. Despite the phenomenal cast and their tight ensemble — and these are some of the best Black actors in the city — they can’t rise above the jagged, disconnected nature of the script.
The Production
I must, however, praise Brandon Kleiman’s inspired set which created a backyard you could happily live in. Ming Wong, who must be the busiest designer in the city, once again has come up with perfect costumes.
Andre du Toit’s lighting was able to isolate key moments in the action to diffuse reality, while Laura Warren’s projections highlight the karaoke segments.
Jaz Fairy J’s choreography is spot on for the characters, and because music is such an important part of the show, Jacob Lin’s sound design is disco quality.
In Conclusion
As a final word, I do realize the importance of Ijames ramrodding over the stereotypical tropes of sorrowful Blacks, and mean streets, and graphic violence to give us a seemingly middle class Black family having a BBQ, albeit they are an eccentric group of people. I also appreciate what the playwright is trying to say about humanity.
Unfortunately, the play did not spark for me.
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