Shakespearean retellings have always greatly enhanced my appreciation for the works of the 450-year-old playwright. Growing up in Washington, D.C., surrounded by theater, I’ve seen Hamlet in a nuclear bunker and a version of Macbeth set in a hospital. So when I found myself waiting for the lights to dim at the Cleveland Playhouse, I was excited to see how Fat Ham, written by James Ijames and directed by Nathan Henry, engages with the poet’s creative legacy. After the hour-and-45-minute run time, I could confidently say that Fat Ham is one of the best interpretations of Hamlet I have seen. 

Fat Ham sets Hamlet in, rather than Elsinore Castle in Denmark, a backyard cookout. The all-Black cast centers around the character Juicy, a young, Black, queer man who is haunted by the ghost of his father. His ghost insists he was murdered by Juicy’s uncle,  currently celebrating an engagement to Juicy’s own mother. To celebrate, his uncle invites family and friends over for ham and ribs. Similar to Hamlet’s plight, Juicy wrestles with his morality and duty to his father as he is pressured to seek revenge against his uncle. But that is where the resemblances between the two works stop, as Fat Ham truly acts as a reinterpretation that brings new insights through the lenses of queerness and the Black experience. 

Luckily, the lenses of queerness and the Black experience are quite familiar and fit well on my face. The set alone, featuring a backyard with a grill, patio, and a small look into the overall house, took me back to family cookouts filled with laughter, good food, and of course, judgment from my elders. There was even a note from the artistic company of Fat Ham, found in the playbill, encouraging the audience to engage in call-and-response derived from many Black theatrical performances. So, through each scene, I found myself laughing joyously, clicking my teeth when shade was thrown on stage, and even replying to some of the lines. While I have been to many cookouts, I felt invited to Fat Ham’s and immersed in the play. 

This immersive experience was enhanced by the actors, who felt like they were close friends and family members. Juicy, played by Ananias J. Dixon, was a kind of Hamlet you couldn’t take your eyes off. Dressed in all black, Juicy embodied what it means to feel different from your family. Wickedly smart and devastatingly lonely, he wrestles with breaking the cycle of trauma and violence that is perpetuated in not just his own family, but Black families across America. Juicy does not want to be his father, who was cruel and demanding throughout his life, yet the hate he feels for his uncle and the desire to prove himself to his father threaten to overtake him throughout the show. Dixon’s performance of Juicy embodies the reflection of the human condition and the burden of feeling like no one truly knows you. He received well-deserved, thunderous applause at the end of the show. 

Juicy was not the only one who had people rising to their feet in applause. The whole cast was truly magnificent. Tedra, Juicy’s mother, played by Tanesha Gary, was magnetic to watch, reminding me of many aunties who pinched my cheeks. But she also brought a depth to the character, masterfully portraying a mother who is trying to find her happiness while moving through a world that centers the men around her. Rev and Pap, Juicy’s deceased father and uncle respectively, both played by Paul Oakley Stovall, commanded the stage with the aura of men who think the world revolves around them. Pap, in particular, showcased that just because you’re dead doesn’t mean you can’t look good, and his glittering cloak matched his captivating acting as he made the crowd erupt with laughter. A testament to Stovall’s acting was his ability to move from Rev, a character the audience hated, to Pap, the one they loved. In the scenes between Juicy and Rev, you could feel the tension in the room. 

Rabby, Larry, and Opal, played by Mariama Whyte, Mell-Vonti Bowens, Jr., and Shuntè Lofton, played the family that was invited over, with their own plethora of problems. Each of them struggled throughout the play to maintain what a “good” Christian Black family should look like, and the scenes between them were not only painfully relatable but masterfully done. Their struggle throughout the play ended in understanding as each of them came to terms with the parts of themselves they tried to hide: Larry and Opal come out to their mother and their mother reveals that their father had not met her at church — rather, he met her as the stripper, “Velvet Sunshine.” This was not only hilarious to watch but also brought me immense joy. Seeing the characters living their truth and defying the societal norms of a traditional Black family was very powerful. 

Finally, the character Tio, played by Brenden Peifer, was my favorite to watch on stage, as his comedic timing and lines shook my shoulders with laughter throughout the play. His comedic genius culminates in a monologue toward the end of the play. Tio talks through his apparent sex dream with a gingerbread man, describing his apprehension of the gingerbread man before allowing himself to enjoy the experience. White streamers shot into the air and fell onto the crowd as he reached the peak of the monologue, and his climax. But to the surprise of everyone, Tio ended his monologue not with absurd humor but a truth that resonates with every character in the show: “Far as we know, we are in the only place in the cosmos that welcomes our particular brand of life. Why waste it trying to be miserable cause it’s gonna make somebody else happy?” 

I feel that this line encapsulates Fat Ham as a play. It seemingly strays far from Shakespeare’s original ideas, and at the end, most of the characters refuse to die, unlike in the original Hamlet. But Fat Ham is rooted in Black culture, taking Hamlet’s familiar story and placing it in a particular brand of life that makes it relevant and engaging, not just for Black audiences, but for the world we live in today. Many treat Shakespeare as static, retelling the plays in the same framework they were created. Meanwhile, Fat Ham is a testament to expanding what we think of when we see Hamlet and how the story, its themes, and characters are not just found in white actors on the stage but in cookouts, in ribs with just the right amount of sauce, and Black tears, joy, and love. I will be buying a copy of Fat Ham as soon as I get paid, and I implore you all to watch the play as well.