FAT HAM is decidedly un-tragic. The play borrows its namesake’s plot but, in a modern departure from Shakespeare’s original young prince sworn to expose his murderous uncle, James Ijames’ FAT HAM is a darkly comedic ode to queer survival and a repudiation of generational trauma.

Please note: the following review contains spoilers for FAT HAM

The company of FAT HAM, including understudies. Photography by Ambe Williams.

James Ijames’ Pulitzer Prize winning FAT HAM, directed by The Public’s Associate Artistic Director Saheem Ali, is the latest co-production between The Public Theater and National Black Theatre (NBT), which have been collaborating since 1968. The Public and NBT are equally committed to creating art that catalyzes civic engagement, particularly pertaining to historically excluded and marginalized communities. This production of FAT HAM feels like a nod to The Public Theater’s Shakespeare Initiative, its ongoing partnership with The Shakespeare Society, which serves students, teachers, scholars and artists with deeper points of connection to Shakespeare’s vast oeuvre, ripe with timeless prose and poetry that hold a mirror to humanity.

FAT HAM begins at a tumultuous family cookout in the American south at present-day—think Maryland, Tennessee or Virginia, not Mississippi, Alabama, or Florida (per Ijames’ conversation with the New Yorker). Juicy, the Bard-fluent protagonist played by Marcel Spears, is a Black queer son with big dreams. He has every reason to leave his regressive hometown, but chooses to stay inside his family’s dysfunction in order to protect his mother, Tedra (Nikki Crawford), from her dangerous brother-in-law-turned-fiancé, Rev (Billy Eugene Jones). Juicy is already at odds with his uncle Rev, who makes constant jabs at Juicy for being “soft”—an epithet for queer throughout the play—and who manipulated Tedra into wasting the last of Juicy’s tuition money to renovate their bathroom. Tedra’s naïve impulsivity may permanently thwart her son’s college career but, unlike every male authority figure in Juicy’s life, she accepts her son and refuses to shame him.

*Billy Eugene Jones as Pap (left), and Marcel Spears as Juicy (right).* Photographed by Joan Marcus.

The cookout heats up when Juicy’s recently murdered father Pap (Billy Eugene Jones in a dual role) shows up as a ghost, demanding that Juicy avenges his death. Pap was killed in prison while serving a sentence for murdering a man for having bad breath. What’s worse, the culprit who hired an assassin to cut Pap’s throat in jail is none other than his own brother Rev, who is about to marry Tedra, Pap’s widow. Mulling over the idea of committing murder, Juicy plots to expose his uncle’s murderous deeds during a game of charades. Juicy is hardly a hero; in an attempt to seize power, he callously outs another character who had been hiding their queer identity from the family. In the wrong environment, that outing might have cost that person their life. FAT HAM explores cruelty, and asks how queer people can choose forgiveness and even joy in the face of society’s sometimes ruthless dramas.

Originally scheduled for a two-week run at The Public from May 26th to June 12th 2022, FAT HAM has generated so much demand that its run has already been extended twice. At the time of writing, FAT HAM will run at The Public until July 17th, 2022.

It’s no surprise that so many people have resonated with FAT HAM’s urgent undercurrent. For someone else, the issue is the difference between life and death. Tomorrow, a different tide may mean life and death for you.

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Note: full cast for FAT HAM at The Public Theater’s June 7th 2022 performance, alphabetically: Nikki Crawford (Tedra), Chris Herbie Holland (Tio), Billy Eugene Jones (Rev/Pap), Adrianna Mitchell (Opal), Calvin Leon Smith (Larry), Marcel Spears (Juicy), and Benja Kay Thomas (Rabby).