Relevancy and Reflection
Review of Fat Ham at Seattle Repertory Theatre
Written by Sophia Tuaua during an Arts Criticism workshop at Evergreen High School
Backyard barbeques aren’t your typical setting for tragedies—especially not a Shakespearean tragedy. And yet, the Pulitzer prize-winning interpretation of Hamlet, called Fat Ham, takes place in a suburban backyard. Playwright James Ijames reimagined Hamlet, a story of death, tragedy, and revenge, to be retold by a Southern African American family. Hamlet himself is represented by a queer Black man named Juicy, tackling the challenges of generational trauma and self-identity. The characters themselves struggle with modern problems in a modern-day setting, attributing to the play's biggest strength—its relatability. James Ijames took advantage of the universality of Shakespeare’s themes and effectively translated them into a Southern context. Much like Hamlet, Fat Ham begins with the celebration of Juicy’s mother marrying his Uncle, Rev. However, unlike Elsinore, their wedding cookout takes place in Juicy’s backyard, shortly after the death of Juicy’s father, Pap. Pap later returns in a ghostly form and demands that Juicy avenge him, as it was Rev who was responsible for Pap's murder. This event serves as a foundation for Ijames to introduce themes of mental health, violence, and generational trauma within Black communities. Fat Ham serves as a successful adaptation of Hamlet due to its representation of conflicts within Black communities and breaking those cycles.
While Fat Ham does showcase the darker side of African American trauma, it shows those patterns being broken and resolved. An example of this is with Pap. Ijames strategically paints him out to be an abusive father, to represent violence within Black communities in the play. This message is conveyed through aggressive, argumentative dialogue to engage the audience with captivating, evoking verbal conflicts. During Pap’s visit from beyond the grave, they argued, violent words being thrown at each other at bone-rattling volumes. As someone who has heard such conflicts many times before in my own family on similar topics, I found the disagreements to be very relatable. It feels raw, using commonly used phrases many teens hear these days coming from parents, which is something that many fights in entertainment tend to overlook. You can tell Ijames and other writers had done their research when skillfully writing what real quarrels sound like. The dialogue continues to be this play's strong suit to also convey themes of mental health to both characters and directly to the audience.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health advocacy has skyrocketed and has had more attention brought to it ever since we’ve had more time to sit with our thoughts in quarantine. However, certain groups, such as the Black community, face a disproportionate struggle when it comes to mental health awareness. Positive mental health awareness isn’t typically talked about enough; communication on the subject comes off as weak and uncomfortable. Something this play does well is provide a beautiful display of emotions being portrayed and dealt with in certain ways to inspire and relate to young Black audiences. Not only does this play portray positive messages and relatable conflicts to the Black community, but it does so in an engaging, entertaining manner.
Intersectionality is introduced early on in the play when the majority of the characters come out as queer. There’s no mistaking that Queer Black representation is overlooked, and often looked down upon by those who are prejudiced against those demographics. As someone who consumes a lot of media daily, on the rare occasion that there is a Queer Black character, their role is unimportant. However, Ijames challenges this stereotype. A major step is that Juicy, the main character, is openly queer. Ijames takes it a step further by introducing multiple young Queer Black characters. Adding in these additional characters allows audiences to observe what coming out can be like for different families. A goal I hope that this play achieves is to get more Black youth to find the courage to come to accept themselves and to, by any means, be accepted by the people around them.
Fat Ham covers strong topics, in an even stronger manner. Loud arguments echo throughout the stage, breakdowns are resolved, cycles are broken, and intersectionality is explored and accepted. Ijames' reimagination of Hamlet caters to an audience that deserves their representation in the media; and Ijames does so in an entertaining, engaging way. So much so that my peers and I left the theater shellshocked. The shock factor delivers these topics effectively and leaves the audience invigorated and inspired, hoping their next visit to the theater is as insightful as the last.
Lead Photo Credit: Taj E.M. Burroughs and Chip Sherman in Fat Ham (2024) at Seattle Rep. Photo by Bronwen Houck.
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This review was written as part of an Arts Criticism workshop at Evergreen High School in Emily Acquino’s Language Arts classes, taught by Press Corps teaching artist Beth Pollack.
