From the Nashville Rep and Nashville Shakespeare Festival
Fat Ham: Shakespeare with Smoke and Spice
Nashville audiences are no strangers to Shakespeare, but Fat Ham offers something different. Instead of staging Hamlet in doublets and dim castles, James Ijames resets the story at a Southern backyard cookout and filters it through a distinctly contemporary lens. The result is less about honoring tradition for tradition’s sake and more about asking what these old stories mean now — and who gets to tell them.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and one of the most talked-about American plays of the last few years, Fat Ham takes the bones of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and relocates them to a Southern backyard cookout. There are folding tables, music drifting through the air, food on the grill and side-eyes across the lawn, nothing remotely “Shakespearean” in sight. Even as Juicy, Ijames’ reimagined Hamlet steps into view, Fat Ham bore little to no resemblance to Shakespeare’s tragedy. That is, until the revengeful ghost of Pap climbs out from the grill.
Juicy is a queer Black man navigating grief, family expectation, and the suffocating pressure to perform a kind of masculinity that simply does not fit. His outline is familiar: Pap, his father, claimed his brother Rev murdered him and now seeks revenge through his son. His mother Tedra has remarried his uncle at a suspiciously quick pace. Suspicions linger throughout the play. And so, Juicy seems destined to follow in his father’s violent footsteps, a pattern that lingers in the family for generations.
Fat Ham was performed on a single still set, allowing the actors to interact with their surroundings and really bring the scene to life. A highlight was the sliding door, which serves as an entrance and exit, where each family member leaves the “back yard” and enters their house, either to fetch something from the kitchen or to get into a petty argument in the bedroom, away from their guests, a little too loudly.
The creative use of levels and thorough spatial awareness are especially important for cast member Bakari J King, who played both Pap and his supposedly murderous brother, Rev. King had not a moment to spare. One moment, he was climbing out of the grill, the next, he was searing real ribs on the prop, then in a bright orange prisoner’s uniform, haunting his son to a point of near-insanity. Then moments later, he would emerge from the sliding door as Tedra’s loving new husband. A classic caricature of the Southern father-figure, dad jokes and all.
What was most impressive about King’s acting between the two roles was the complex, underlying aggression and malice Rev has for Juicy. From the beginning, Pap was portrayed as an embodiment of anger and vengeance. Rev seems like a foil to Pap at first, but as the narrative progresses, hints of intolerance emerge. He would frequently snap at Juicy, judging his feminine characteristics and ridiculing him. Although those comments were often quick and missable, skirting the family’s attention, especially Tedra’s. King’s duality left the audience suspicious, wondering whether Rev truly killed Pap out of jealousy, or whether he’s a prejudiced man who held Juicy to unattainable standards, expecting him to fit into traditionally masculine roles.
That tension was mirrored not only in the script but also in the production’s visual language. The lighting design played a crucial role in shaping the emotional arc of the evening. Warm, golden tones bathed the cookout scenes, mimicking the late-afternoon glow that suggests safety, nostalgia, and even celebration. But when the ghost entered or when Juicy found himself alone with his thoughts, the lighting tightened and cooled to eerie blues and greens. Shadows deepened. The backyard suddenly felt smaller, more exposed. The production team used string lights to mark significant moments, highlighting the tension built by an action or event and signaling the change to come.
The lighting wasn’t just flashy and for show; it was deliberate. It underscored the way joy and dread coexist in the same space. One moment, we were in communal laughter. Next, we were in something far more unsettling. The lights helped guide that transition without ever overwhelming the actors, allowing the emotional temperature to rise and fall with precision.
The humor in Fat Ham deserves a special mention. This play is consistently, disarmingly funny. The banter at the cookout feels lived-in and specific, the kind of teasing and storytelling you might overhear at any large Southern family gathering. Ijames embraces clever jokes with self-awareness: the actors poke at Juicy for finishing an online degree through the performance, making fun of him for “going to school on your phone.” But the writer doesn’t shy away from more classic silliness either, such as dead-Pap’s dramatic entrance as a classic Halloween-esque ghost, with a white tablecloth draped over himself, because that’s how ghosts are “supposed” to look.
Fat Ham digs into how patriarchy moves through families, how trauma gets normalized, and how love and harm can coexist in the same breath. The play made me think about the roles of happiness and independence, whether it’s alright to reject tradition, upset elders, and break taboos if it brings true happiness.
What ultimately distinguishes Fat Ham from its Shakespearean predecessor is its sense of possibility. Where Hamlet famously assumes inevitability, Fat Ham extends beyond the trope. It suggests that tragedy isn’t destiny, and choosing softness in a world that demands stone-hard exteriors might be its own radical act.
To theater heads and drama kids accustomed to seeing the classics honored faithfully, Ijames’ play feels like both a tribute and a challenge. It respects Shakespeare enough to wrestle with him, glimpsing the story through a modern, relevant lens. It asks what it means to inherit a story and whether we’re obligated to repeat it exactly as we received it.
In a city increasingly hungry for theater that reflects the complexity of the world we’re actually living in, Fat Ham feels less like a novelty and more like a necessary next chapter.
Fat Ham was a joint production between the Nashville Repertory Theatre and the Nashville Shakespeare Festival. While its run is over, the season is far from over: check out the upcoming performance of Over Night at the Museum on March 14.
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Nastassja is a Hong Kong native who called Boston home for 7 years. She graduated with a BS in Journalism from Emerson College and is currently located in Fort Smith, Arkansas. When she isn’t writing or reading, you can find her crocheting and spending time with her husband, dog, and two cats.
