Marcel Spears and Nikki Crawford (Photo by Jeff Lorch)
Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
Geffen Playhouse
Through May 5
RECOMMENDED
Even as it riffs off Hamlet, James Ijames’s Pulitzer-prize winning Fat Ham is less an adaption of Shakespeare as it is a portrait of a contemporary gay Black man laboring in the shadow of his abusive sire. Hamlet and Fat Ham share common components — the prime one being that, in each, the mother of the lead character has entered into a hasty marriage with her (suspiciously) dead husband’s brother. This thread, however (and other nuances less prominent) serve as the launchpad rather than the primary driver for this playwright’s rich, character-driven comedy.
A beguiling amalgam of humor and pathos, the play opens in the backyard of a middle-class domicile in the South, where a wedding celebration — a barbecue, naturally — is about to take place. A guy who loves his mom no matter what, Juicy (Marcel Spears) is dutifully readying the space for the party when the ghost of his dad, Pap (Billy Eugene Jones), pops out of the grill and demands vengeance for his untimely death at the (indirect) hands of his brother, who’d paid someone to kill him. Pap is himself one mean dude; at the time of his murder, he’d been serving time for the gratuitously fatal knifing of a hapless employee, merely because he suffered bad breath. The gentle Juicy is torn between what he fears might be expected of him as his father’s progeny, and a common sense of revulsion both for his father personally and for the very concept of committing murder. His conflict is compounded by an equal distaste for his uncle, Rev (Jones), who is abusive and disrespectful toward Juicy as his Dad had been, constantly ridiculing him as soft and unmanly. By contrast, Juicy loves his mom (a terrific Nikki Crawford), a boisterous, motormouth of a lady in cut-off denim shorts and come-hither footwear. Though she’s demolished Juicy’s college fund at the behest of her new spouse (he demanded a bathroom do-over), she loves her son just as he is, and strategizes for another way to help him move forward with his life.
The guests at the barbecue include Tio (Chris Herbie Holland), a garrulous pothead and Juicy’s best bud (read Horatio here) and family friend Rabby (Benja Gay Thomas), a closed-minded, churchgoing matron, with a world perspective about the size of a peephole. Accompanying Rabby (the play’s Polonius) are her two grown children: sullen Opal (Adrianna Mitchell), a surrogate for Ophelia who, for this occasion, is wearing a dress, rather than pants, at the forced behest of her traditionalist mom. Her more timorous brother Larry (Matthew Elijah Webb), a stand-in for Laertes, stiffly sports his uniform as a member of the Marine Corps. And just as Juicy has always struggled with the macho taunts of his dad and uncle — so both Opal and Larry have had to deal with the distorted assumptions of their mother, who has raised Opal to be a deb and the retiring Larry to be a stalwart man in the military.
For all three of these people the gap between what society expects from them, and who they feel themselves to be is a cavernous one. The playwright’s concern, however, isn’t simply the experience of gay people in a harshly disapproving heterosexual world, although that’s on view; it’s more broadly how people treat each other in general — whether with cruelty or kindness — and how those who have been wronged can rise with dignity and grace above the wrongdoers. To this end, the focal point of the play is the forbearing Juicy, who’s been stung for years by the rocks and slings and arrows of the men in his family, but who has never allowed this bullying to alter or destroy him.
Spears first played the role of Juicy when Fat Ham opened in 2022 at The Public Theater in New York under the direction of Saheem Ali; and later, when it moved to Broadway in April of last year. (Indeed, excepting Webb, who understudied his role in New York, this production reprises the entire NY cast.) That may or may not be the reason that his performance, directed by Sideeq Heard for this Los Angeles production, seemed lacking a fresh dynamic. Jones’s villains, by contrast, came across as too broad and over the top. As a result, a key aspect of the story, the dramatic tension between these two generations of men, lost a lot of its punch.
But other elements work beautifully — certainly the comedy does. Crawford, as Juicy’s sexy, vivacious, greedy-for-life mom — the kind of person who seems always to be operating on her own private stage, but — surprise — never fails to comes down off her platform for the son she dearly loves — is deliciously engaging to watch. Thomas is the consummate casting choice for one of those churchy women who never doubts the rightness of her priggish opinions, while Mitchell’s fractious Opal gleans every ounce of empathy for her defiant take-no-prisoners esprit.
Notwithstanding the reservations mentioned prior, the ensemble mines Ijames’s dialogue with craft, creating a sense of community and warmth, and an aliveness that in moments may have you thinking that you, too, might have a seat at this table.
Geffen Playhouse, 10866 Le Conte Ave., Westwood; Opens Fri., April 5; Wed.-Sat., 8 pm, Sat.-Sun., 2 pm, Sun.,7 pm; thru April 28. www.geffenplayhouse.com Running time: approximately one hour and 40 minutes with no intermission.
