You can’t beat the classics, but you can definitely change them. Taking on the challenge of transforming William Shakespeare’s all-time lauded Hamlet was playwright James Ijames, who has set the theater world ablaze with the modern-day adaptation Fat Ham, making its West Coast premiere at the Geffen Playhouse throughout April. The play follows Juicy, a young queer Black man who is confronted by his father’s ghost during a barbecue, demanding Juicy avenge his murder in true Hamlet style. However, Juicy is aware of the play’s tribulations, attempting to break the cycle of trauma in a tragic, yet hilarious, comedy.
First premiering in 2021, Fat Ham has quickly become a legendary show in its own right, earning the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, joining the likes of Hamilton and Rent in award recipients. Once the show hit Broadway in 2023, it received another wave of widespread acclaim, including a nomination for Best Play at the 2023 Tony Awards.
Ijames was inspired by Hamlet in college, a time where he told Geffen Associate Artistic Director Amy Levinson that he was “coming to terms with being gay” at an all-male college in Georgia.
“I have always attached Hamlet to [the] notion, the idea that there was something fundamental about him, but because of the family and world he was born into, he kept rejecting it,” Ijames told Levinson. “So when I started to write, and I wanted to sort of dabble into adaptation, the first play that came to mind was Hamlet. It just made complete sense to make Juicy queer. I would have to make Hamlet queer. And knowing that helped me build the obstacles in the play, because I was very clear about why he felt shut out of his family. And so, the obstacle is this intense notion of masculinity, and some of the violence and signifiers of that kind of masculinity that show up in men and families that they inflict on the queer members of the family, whether intentional or unintentional.”
Bringing the play to the Geffen was partially curated by the playhouse’s Artistic Director, Tarell Alvin McCraney, who will be taking over the Geffen’s slate of shows for the 2024-25 season.
“You are witnessing the West Coast premiere of a play continuing its history making run here at the Geffen,” McCraney said in the show’s playbill. “This play, its deep discourse with the classic tragedy Hamlet and its intentional drive towards joy, felt like the perfect setting to celebrate ‘what’s next’ at the Geffen.”
The show, which officially opens on Thursday after a special Black Partners Appreciation Night held Tuesday and a preview show on Wednesday, will have much of the Broadway cast involved. Marcel Spears returns as Juicy, while the likes of Nikki Crawford, Chris Herbie Holland and Billy Eugene Jones will also be lending their talents to the Geffen production. Spears can also be seen on television co-starring in the CBS show The Neighborhood alongside Cedric the Entertainer.
After serving as Associate Director on Broadway, Sideeq Heard will take over the director’s chair from Saheem Ali at the Geffen. Heard was recently awarded Best Director for the short film Here Is a Man at the 2023 Reel Sisters of the Diaspora film festival, and also serves as creator, director and co-writer of the soon-premiering digital series Men Like Us, following the lives of three queer black men.
Following Fat Ham, McCraney’s inaugural season as Geffen Artistic Director begins in August with The Brothers Size, followed by Dragon Lady in September and Waiting For Godot in November. To purchase tickets for Fat Ham (running through April 28) and for more information on upcoming Geffen shows, visit geffenplayhouse.org