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Isabella Gardner

Dr. Susan Kattwinkel

Contemporary Theatre

22 October 2023

Fat Ham Personal Response

It is praised for its originality in this act, namely for its interpretation of the familial tension

written so long ago into modern-day black generational trauma. It shares more themes with its

parent work as well, such as what it means to be head of a house, head of a family, a man, or a

woman, and the sacrifices each person in each role has to make to be accepted by family and

society. However, it delves into themes of homophobia and navigating the world as a queer

youth that good ol’ Billy Shakes didn’t touch on. Fat Ham takes the family unit demonstrated in

Shakespeare’s Hamlet and uses a modern lens to reach a contemporary audience.

This play speaks to contemporary struggles of gender and sexuality as its primary themes.

In terms of gender, we see it most plainly in Tedra. She is like a woman of a previous time in her

behavior, mainly because it seems her entire life was ruled by the men in it. She is both victim

and Tedra mentions going directly from her father’s house to Pap’s house, “I ain’t never been

alone,” (page 52) pretty early on, she speaks of Pap’s absence due to killing a man in the middle

of a restaurant (page 51), his behavior during their time together, and as the story unfolds, it’s

clear she bends to Rev’s will as well. She cannibalizes Juicy’s college savings for what appears

mostly to be Rev’s dream bathroom, and her opinion is almost always neutral in a group

argument until Rev chimes in or takes her aside, like during and after the charades scene from

pages 102 to 116. The only man she actually owes anything to is her son, and she seems to let the
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sacrifices she makes rub the most off on him. The bathroom, her attention, and her good favor.

Her feeling that she owes everything she has to her current husband even goes as far as to let him

physically assault her son. It is as though Tedra sees the femininity in Juicy and sees him as in

the struggle with her instead of a victim of her raising and choices.

Sexuality is deeply intertwined with this theme. Juicy’s queer identity is often connected

with his feminine (or rather, not hypermasculine) expression and made fun of as “soft.” His

“softness” is a point of contention between him and both Pap and Rev, but is something Larry

deeply envies, as he laments “I want to be soft… I want to bless someone with how soft I can

be.” (page 110). In the end, it becomes a point of contention between Juicy and Rabby, ending in

Juicy outing Larry to his mother and Opal outing herself to soften the blow. What’s baffling is

that Rabby seems to quickly go from chastizing Juicy for being gay to listening, baffled, to

everyone speaking their truth. It only takes one long, high monologue from Tio to make Rabby

accept her children for how they are. This probably also speaks to Opal and Larry being straight-

passing. While Opal expresses that she wants to take on male-dominated jobs and reviles against

feminine dress, she is still considered traditional enough not to take the kind of heat Juicy does.

And Larry is doing everything right, according to the elders, because of his masculine pursuit of

a military career. When it is revealed at the end that every young person represented was gay the

entire time, it’s as though the two women previously reviling queer identities just… accept them.

Everyone just comes together for a good scream battle and a drag show. It’s almost as if the

women were just repeating what they’d heard, what the men in their lives believed, and what

they thought would protect their children, and when they realized that they were the ones

actually hurting their children (and with Rev dead), it wasn’t hard to change their tune. It takes
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them facing their children, who turned out completely differently than they thought or expected

they would, for them to break the cycle of heard and repeated hatred.

This play has had incredible success because of its representation of misunderstood youth

navigating difficult families and their true identities. Each character is accepted based on how

true to themselves they are, and watching how much they bow to or buck up against the system-

and one isn’t rewarded too much more than the other- shows a stylized but relatable portrayal of

keeping secrets from your family because of a cultural bias influencing them. In many ways, this

isn’t a contemporary theme. Hamlet itself is about the very same thing. Fat Ham, however,

draws on the recent movements based on queer representation and acceptance, often spearheaded

by Gen Z. It names the isolation and fear that Hamlet goes through something different, and

more specific.

The style of this show offers so much play to the audience. Ijames’ use of asides given

directly to the audience is a rip from Shakespeare that I don't see often in adaptations. Using

these asides further help push this contemporary story along because it really puts the audience

in their seat, in the theatre, in the world, in 2023. And Ijames wanted these characters to be here,

with us, facing the same issues we do, and the characters detailing their struggles to the audience

both lets us into those themes of hiding and identity vs. family/society mentioned previous, and

reminds the audience that they are indeed, the audience. Shakespeare’s classics offer much plot

reference material to authors doing adaptations, but Ijames has taken it a step further by

including the Shakespearean tradition of asides.

Personally, I enjoyed this show. I connected with it as a performer and a Shakespeare

lover. If one couldn’t tell from watching how I perform on the College of Charleston MainStage,

I love a classic, and I love a chance to literally bring an audience into the world, as participant
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and perhaps a victim. I think the use of Hamlet as a jumping off point without getting married to

it’s specific plot structure it is so important for this story to thrive and part of the reason why it’s

received it’s critical acclaim. Ijames truly touches the modern audience using a longstanding and

sometimes overdone strategy. I think a Shakespeare adaptation that demands so much

movement, and energy, and one that has actors jumping in and out of the proscenium frame on a

moment’s notice, is a show I cannot help but love. It’s the kind of show that I would attend and

would leave the theatre reminded of why I love live performance.