A Juicy and Fabulous Hamlet
Adaptation is tricky. The worst adaptations are just thin retreads of the original, seeming more convenient than eye-opening and offering little new. The best adaptations stand on their own; they make you reconsider the original and maybe even think differently about it. They reward fans but don’t exclude those unfamiliar with the source.
Fat Ham playwright James Ijames' take on Hamlet at the Geffen is definitely a great adaptation.
Instead of the dreary castle of Elsinore, we’re at a Black backyard BBQ in the south. As Mr. Ijames says in his stage direction, “A house in North Carolina. Could also be Virginia, or Maryland or Tennessee. It is not Mississippi, or Alabama or Florida. That’s a different thing altogether.” Our Hamlet character is Juicy. Juicy’s dad was just recently murdered and he’s busy preparing for his mom and uncle’s post-wedding ceremony shindig with his bestie Tio(Horatio). Just as they finish with the balloons and string lights, the ghost of Juicy's father appears with some tough news.
If you have an even passing familiarity with Hamlet, you see where this is going and you get this isn’t your all-white, stale Hamlet.
Mr. Ijames is taking the bones of the old to make an entirely new dish, a bit like throwing soup bones into the pot for a new meal.
You’ll feel the new — not only in the setting and the language but also in the quartet of young characters. They’re the lifeblood of the story. They’re all queer, though some are just coming to terms with that.
We have Larry (our Laertes) who’s a ramrod straight Marine. Juicy, who’s queer and wants to finish up his online University of Phoenix degree in Human Relations (he’s a bit emo so it sorta makes sense). There’s Tio, who’s just trying to get by and dream a bit. And then there’s Opal (our Ophelia) who’s a little butch even when her mom puts her in a dress. It’s the fate of these young folks that you’ll really care about.
What James Ijames is up to is more complicated than simply adapting Hamlet. He’s telling a Black story about family myths and expectations. He’s poking at the original text and trying to make it make sense. Maybe the most jarring but "oh-of-course" pivots is how sexy Gertrude is, which makes perfect sense. After all, this woman has to be alluring enough to make a man kill his brother to get her.
Let’s be clear, if you’re a Shakespearean purist, you’ll likely hate this show and find the ending an abomination. But I’m guessing Fat Ham lost you with the queer Black Hamlet.
If on the other hand, you love Hamlet but can embrace the new, Mr. Ijames will reward you. The choice words of Shakespeare that we do hear are a treat. But the rewards are deeper and more conceptual. The play within a play sensibility is extended to encompass the whole. We’re watching a Juicy, who knows you know this is a take on Hamlet. His asides are not just to share his mind with us, but also his predicament of being trapped inside a generational curse and the confines of the play.
This is where the play made me think (and rethink) the original text. I really began caring about these "kids." They were on their own journey trying to escape the restrictive norms they’d been born into. I felt the weight of the ending in a way I never had in Hamlet. I found Ophelia’s death tragic but never wished it weren’t so. However, in Fat Ham, I started dreading what I knew was coming. I wanted them to succeed, despite knowing the inevitability.
So did Mr. Ijames.
I won’t give away the ending but I will say it doesn’t stick anywhere close to the original. It’s funny, one of the joys of going to the theater is overhearing what folks thought on the way to their cars. One fellow I overheard saying, “Well, I guess they didn’t have an ending so they went with that.” I feel comfortable saying he wasn’t the target audience for Fat Ham. He not only missed the point but also the joy.
Fat Ham has already been extended and it’s likely a hard ticket to get, but if you can, go see this show. You’ll never think of Hamlet in the same way. And if you’ve got a teenager, this is a Hamlet that just might move them.
Fat Ham plays at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood through May 5th.
This is Anthony Byrnes Opening the Curtain on LA Theater for KCRW.
