STAGE WEST: "Fat Ham" at Old Globe Theatre

Sola Fadiran stars in "Fat Ham" at the Old Globe.                                                   Photo by Rich Soublet II

            Fire up the grill, turn up the karaoke machine, send up every production of “Hamlet” you’ve ever seen before and you’ve got James Ijames’ parodic comedy “Fat Ham.”
               Damnedest backyard barbecue I’ve ever been to.
            The Old Globe is staging James Ijames’ 2022 Pulitzer Prize winner under the direction of Sideeq Heard, who earlier this spring directed “Fat Ham” at the Geffen Playhouse in L.A. It’s an entirely new cast in San Diego, and it’s an exceptional one: funny, physical and, fittingly in the case of Juicy, the Hamletian character (Sola Fadiran), philosophical.
            “Fat Ham” is more than a mere nod to Shakespeare’s most famous (and many would say greatest) work. Ijames not only borrowed the basic premise of “Hamlet” – a son charged by his father’s ghost to avenge his murder by the brother who has wed the young man’s mother – but many actual lines from the play turn up in “Fat Ham.” They’re not always spoken with the same grim existentialism that the Prince of Denmark spoke them, but turn up they do. Juicy’s aside to the audience about how to expose his murdering uncle, for one. Though in “Fat Ham” Hamlet’s play-within-a-play device becomes an animated game of charades.
            When the script wink-winks Shakespeare to the audience, it doesn’t always connect. On opening night, for example, I seemed to be one of the few who got the “There’s the rub” reference when the pork barbecue was being prepped for cooking. But oh well.
            While Ijames absolutely knows his “Hamlet” and “Fat Ham” is presented with its particular moral dilemmas and self-examinations of being and identity, he’s created an often-hilarious comic romp that, whether in conflict or all in fun, has a life of its own.
            Somewhere in the American South in contemporary times, Rev (understudy Ethan Henry on opening night) and Tedra (Felicia Boswell) are hosting a cookout (on a bucolic back-porch set by Maruti Evans) to celebrate their recent marriage. Conspicuous in the foreground is a wreath on a pedestal inset with a photo of Tedra’s late husband Pap.
            First Juicy’s friend Tio (Xavier Pacheco, a Horatio knockoff) then Juicy himself witnesses the appearance of a ghostly figure. The perpetually buzzed Tio only sees a specter covered with a checkered tablecloth, but Juicy gets the full treatment when the spirit of his dead dad (also Ethan Henry) “materializes” in the first of several canny cameos of stagecraft. (Credit Skylar Fox for this show’s illusion design.) A boisterous, raging Pap informs Juicy that he was murdered by his brother and that Juicy is duty-bound, or bound by blood, to exact bloody revenge.
            Juicy is a sensitive (“soft,” his stepfather insults him) sort decidedly not prone to violence in spite of his disgust and disappointment at his mother's so quickly marrying his uncle. He’s also a searching, young queer man whose only path to a higher-ed diploma is the University of Phoenix online and whose stated vocation is “human resources.”
            Before he can process the ghostly visitation with its terrible indictment, the cookout is joined by three guests: vivacious Rabby (Yvette Cason, in a re-imagination of the Polonius character), her upright Marine son Larry (Tian Richards) in full dress uniform and her blunt and angsting daughter Opal (m). If you want to get technical, they are Ijames’ Laertes and Ophelia, though any resemblance is minimal.
            The eating part of the afternoon is thankfully brief. It gives way to the introduction of the karaoke machine, a sequence that is the best in the entire show. It begins with Tedra singing and gyrating to “Kill the Lights,” showcasing the boundless energy and kinetic elasticity of Felicia Boswell. Hers is a performance throughout “Fat Ham” that just overflows with vivacity.
            The tone shifts dramatically when the introspective Juicy is goaded into being next up at karaoke. Fadiran’s deep and alienated rendering of Radiohead’s “Creep” is a breathless departure from the prior partying and infighting. This is a song that I’ve long believed is the most haunting and beautiful ballads written in the name of those who feel out of place or cut off from the world. It fits Juicy as much as “To be or not to be” fits Prince Hamlet. I generally don’t recount how an audience reacts to a performance, but many at the Globe stood in applause when Fadiran finished.
            Revelations come fast and furiously afterward. The tell-tale charades game aside, both Opal and, more surprisingly, Larry reveal their sexuality to Juicy (though it’s clear that Opal’s is no news to him). At the same time, the fire lit by the charades gambit is leading Rev and Tedra toward a reckoning that will shake that backyard porch to its foundation.
            If “Fat Ham” falters at all, it’s in the last 15 minutes or so when unlike most of what preceded those 15 minutes, things head over the top. The smiley-face-balloon Yorick scene – that’s fine. The rambling stoner monologue from Tio about gingerbread-man oral sex – not so much. Rev’s karmic undoing? Contrived.
            As for the finale … well, see what you think. Guaranteed it won’t be anticlimactic.
         Like multiple productions I’ve seen this year, “Fat Ham” is one that contemplates identity – sexual, social and personal. Juicy is not melancholy like Shakespeare’s Dane, but neither is he happy. He is presented at the end with the play’s moral directive about choosing pleasure over violent retribution, and there never was any doubt that he would make the right choice.
           The part of Juicy is a triumphant turn for Fadiran, anchor of a cast that one and all delivers the goods from start to finish and makes “Fat Ham” an exciting and unpredictable (just under) two hours of theater. It matters not whether you know a little “Hamlet” or a lot. Get thee to the Globe before it closes on June 23.