Hamlet is a well known play depicting a son enacting revenge on his uncle for the death of his father. In all Shakespearean tragedies, there are many casualties throughout the play as the protagonist grapples with the choice he will make. Fat Ham by James Ijames, now on at the Canadian Stage, reimagines the story of Hamlet with the protagonist as a Black, queer, southern man. Hamlet has been renamed Juicy, and with his father deceased, his mother marries his uncle leading to a cook-out celebration for the newlyweds. This cook-out is the stage for discussions around queerness, acceptance, expectations, toxic-masculinity and gender-roles.
Peter Fernandes who plays Juicy shares that this version has allowed him to play a character that once felt out of reach. “For a long time, I felt like Hamlet, the role was barred for me, or I was barred from playing that. There are some people who told me, or a person, one very specific person told me that I didn’t have the stamina or the dexterity to be in classical work. And so for a long time I held some resistance to that, even though I knew I wanted to be involved in classical work. When I read Fat Ham, I was immediately drawn to the fact that I have access to a lot of this and there is no denying that I can bring myself to this. So it was a very joyful experience to get to read the play for the first time, not only because it’s full of humor and heart, but also because I can see more of myself in this show than in other shows that people have said that I maybe could not be a part of it. I’ve watched some interviews with James Ijames and there was a love for Shakespeare and for Hamlet as well, but there was also that same sort of resistance I don’t think he saw himself as a Hamlet, even though he had played Hamlet. He saw himself as a Horatio. That’s very similar to what I feel as well. So beautiful things are born out of resistance. This play included.”
For director Philip Akin, he wanted to characters to shine and leave an impact on audiences. “I think the best way to get ideas across is to come out of the hearts and minds and bodies and voices of the characters and the characters just have to be real. That brings its own conflict with it. You just have to have real people. That’s where my jumping off point was. Who are these people? What are their needs? What are their desires?”
For Fernandes, while this retelling has made Hamlet more accessible, he doesn’t feel that all classics need a retelling to allow for minority actors to be cast. “It’s smart programming on Canadian Stage’s part to put Fat Ham in the same season as Hamlet out in High Park. Fat Ham existing doesn’t remove the fact that Hamlet also exists. For a lot of people, this is going to be their first interaction with Shakespeare and how beautiful is it that they get to see that in a in black bodies, right? When they go where a lot of people will say, ‘Oh, yeah, this is the traditional – or what we think – are traditional or historic interpretation of it’. They’re not going to have a separation. They’ve been exposed to it already. I think this opens the door to that. They feed each other. Fat Ham doesn’t exist without Hamlet and Hamlet now will contain reverberations from Fat Ham as well. I think it’s incredibly important to see Black bodies on stage to tell these stories so that we break free from these cycles of what we think are traditional ways of telling stories. It’s important to see Black joy on stage. That is incredibly important and it’s something that we don’t get to see a lot of. So it’s not just seeing certain bodies, certain opinions, certain skin on stage, diversity on stage. It’s also the kinds of stories we get to tell. We are not a monolith, so we do not tell one version of our events, of our stories.”
As the play manages rot work through some heavy themes with laughter, Fernandes shares that this has added to the receptiveness of the audience. “I think underneath anything that is comedic is truth. It’s not going to be funny if it’s fake out there. When you really explore the truth behind these characters, and what they’re burdened with, and the struggle there, and – that might not feel like you’re putting up a comedy sometimes – but if you really dig into that truth, the funny will come out. I also think that we don’t put a lot of weight on comedy in theater. I think we kind of belittle it a little bit, but for somebody who has made their career primarily in comedy, I find that it is a very effective way to explore the vulnerability and open people up. Laughter and that breath that you find with laughter can be very close to that breath when you find with when you when you’re on the verge of tears and I think If you open them up with comedy and with laughter, they’re going to be very receptive to that truth that is underneath that laughter.” Akin adds, “It’s also tricky, too. This is Black cultural laughter in a lot of ways, right? A number of shows that I’ve done that have had comedic elements in it that have made me ask how a predominantly white audience going to react. You can see people going, ‘I think that’s funny, but should I laugh?Can I laugh? I don’t know’. Black humor can come from a place of real bitterness and edge. We’re not at a place right now in the zeitgeist where edge is much appreciated. So, one of the beautiful things about this play is how fast it can take you to laughter and get past that obstacle, right? It’s tricky. If you spend too much time thinking about it, you’ll blow the moments. You just have to be in the collision of the two ideas. That’s where the humor comes out of, right? But if you try to make it what I call ‘Chitlin circuit’ humor, It’s not gonna work.”
Fat Ham has moments of hilarity that were completely unexpected and while speaking to a Black audience in a unique way, did not alienate white audiences to join in on the laughter.
Fat Ham is on NOQ at the Canadian Stage until March 16th. Learn more and get tickets here.
Hillary LeBlanc
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