“Fat Ham” at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Juicy (Marshall W Mabry IV) Photo by Jenny Graham

Fat Ham

By James Ijames
Directed by Elizabeth Carter

Ashland, OR at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival
March 11 – June 27, 2025

Hamlet is my favorite Shakespeare play, so when I heard about a modern adaption set in the Southern United States, I really wanted to see it. Finding out that it won a Pulitzer prize for drama and featured a gay Hamlet heighted my desire. So I went into the theater for Fat Ham with terribly high expectations. Surprisingly, my over-the-top hopes were satisfied. I loved the writing, staging, and acting!

Fat Ham is clever and insightful. The plot sounds very Shakespearian. Our hero’s father has been murdered and his uncle marries his mother. Our young hero is heavy set and called “Juicy” in the play. He’s a fat Hamlet. Clever, eh?

There are a lot references to Hamlet and some soliloquies are transferred verbatim to this modern work. But, the setting is a Black-owned southern barbeque with references and innuendos from that background. The plot is at least as convoluted as the original. And, it’s satisfying to see the general troubled family theme transferred into today’s world.

Tio (Davied Morales). Photo by Jenny Graham

The play opens with Juicy (Marshall W Mabry IV) catching his friend Tio (Davied Morales) watching straight porn as the family gets ready for his mother Tedra (Lynnette R. Freeman) and Uncle Rev’s (Aldo Billingslea) wedding reception. First Tio and then Juicy see Juicy’s father’s ghost and Juicy learns how dad died.

Juicy has to deal with instructions from dad’s/Pap’s ghost (also Aldo Billingslea), hostility from Rev, family drama, and more complications that make Shakespeare’s story seem simple.

Over the course of the next hour and fifty minutes guests arrive for the wedding reception including Juicy’s childhood girlfriend Opal (Saran Evelyn Bakari), her brother Larry (Christian Denzel Bufford), and their mother Rabby (Shaunyce Omar). Everyone seems straight-forward at first but each has a twist that creates depth in the person and in the play.

Jucy (Marshall W. Mabry IV), Opal ((Saran Evelyn Bakari), Rabby (Shaunyce Omar, Davied Morales). Photo by Jenny Graham.

And, speaking of straight… that’s not so popular an orientation among the young people. The coming out scenes are both expected and surprises. The good people in older generation are accepting and one even has a sleazy surprise herself to lighten the mood.

Well, actually, there is constant laughter and fun in Fat Ham. Swear-word laden speeches (which I usually don’t like) are delivered with such fantastic imagery that they are embarrassingly enjoyable. Tio in particular provides a fast, clear, outrageously humorous story in front of the family.

The references to tragedies are carried through the performance. If you’re familiar with Hamlet you cannot stop yourself from anticipating a speech or action. Fat Ham plays off that expectation brilliantly. I found myself saying “Alas, poor Yorick…”, but, spoiler alert, no one on stage utters those words even though they’d be completely appropriate in one scene.

Billingslea’s Pap and Rev are clear, differentiated, and powerful. He’s a star.

Morales’ Tio is energetic, over the top, but also a real character. He’s just too much fun.

Bufford maybe has the most complex character with military, soon-to-be-drag-queen, Larry. He is believable from the moment he walks on stage until he dances off it. The character is written to be melodramatic but Bufford makes him also feel like a person.

The stage is a masterfully done, too.

We are given a large backyard that has eating areas and features a large barbeque.

Most of the action is in the yard, but the characters go upstage into the farmhouse where they appear in the background enhancing the family feel of the story.

The pacing and acting are flawless throughout.