Unicorn Theatre brings Shakespearian tragedy to a backyard BBQ in Fat Ham

Photo by Don Ipock

My overhanded complaint that KC theatre simply has too many great productions going on simultaneously is renewed again this month, as standing tentpole shows overlap with a firehose of edgy, clinically masterminded ‘new voice’ or ‘theatre lab’ shows. While I’m playing catch-up on all the reviews The Pitch needs to write up, its worth saying from the top that you’ve still got plenty of time to catch today’s storied story—as Fat Ham runs at The Unicorn through June 8, with tickets available here.

Directed by Tosin Morohunfola—currently on loan from Los Angeles—James Ijames’ play centers on a Southern family and their backyard cookout. The Pulitzer Prize-winning script follows Juicy (Darrington Clark) as a conflicted Black queer college student whose life has been defined by the violence of the men around him. While nursing a secret emotionally turbulent inner life, he’s engaged in preparations for a gathering that serves as both the funeral for his recently murdered father Pap (L. Roi Hawkins) and the equally sudden marriage of his mother Tedra (Teonna Wesley) to the dead man’s brother, Rev (also L. Roi Hawkins).

Somewhat complicating the shindig is the sudden appearance of Juicy’s dead father as a ghost, informing the boy that this recent murder was executed by Juicy’s uncle/new father, and pleading for just vengeance. Here, the only suitable revenge offered is that Juicy adopts that family’s BBQ restaurant skills to execute and dismember Rev, then serve him as a buffet to the neighborhood friends and family.

The tonal shifts from an opening that features Juicy’s best friend Tio (Solomon Langley) loudly watching porn on his iPhone while discussing a career in OnlyFans, to grappling with an abusive dad sent from beyond the grave, to a house party plagued by resentment under every fake smile—in another work these 180’s and pivots to wall-breaking monologues would come off as scattershot choices. Here, though, Ijames is merely sticking closely to the foundation from which he’s adapting: William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. 

The Bard by way of backyard BBQ serves up the rare opportunity to re-examine one of theatre’s great works by retrofitting it onto a thoroughly modern cast of characters. Rather than transferring scenes in whole across projects, the show here offers its strictest adherence to the intentionality of the entertainment itself. Fat Ham is rarely offering up one-to-one lines, so much as it is breaking rules left and right to deliver the most kinetic, attention-grabbing action or tension available. It delivers on the promise of giving the audience whatever they might be craving and piling these on like side options at a buffet.

It’s a maximalist approach that pays tribute to the enjoyment sought by the original text rather than yet another droll contextualization of its themes alone. This pile-on of options also means that scenes that lag or where the story drifts too far from shore are quickly followed up by something completely different. For a Midwest play, it has beautiful adherence to the Midwest weather adage about “If you don’t like it, wait five minutes.”

Photo by Don Ipock

Opal (Amari Lewis), Larry (Rashaad Hall), and Rabby (Nedra Dixon) round out the cast of players whose purpose and plots are equally engaging and (at times) even more precarious than the central murder-revenge premise. Morohunfola gives the crew the latitude to unleash personal prowess for each actor to let loose. Small asides that feel unscripted or even uttered accidentally, along with physical flourishes in that freedom, combine to let any member of this cast steal attention at any moment. In the small scenes, this just adds increasing fuel to the fire. When the stage is full. it is full.

It is therefore of particular note that Darrington Clark, atop their excellent leading role, manages to employ the same skills to wrangle the whole affair back into control whenever Juicy wants. For a show about how adrift a hopeless romantic can be, especially when caught in the family’s shadow, it is Clark who can literally freeze time or halt the entire affair to indulge in a pitch-perfect alt-rock performance draped in Bugsy Berkeley presentation.

Fat Ham swings for the fences with a high-concept framework that only pushes the boundaries harder the longer it’s allowed to hold the stage. The harsh swings between increasingly emotionally wrecked character turmoil and beats that careen into comedy make for an end product that cascades across the finish line. Sections that felt unbalanced within the performance sort of blend together in the rearview mirror, when you recognize Fat Ham as much more than the sum of its parts.

“The play’s the thing” is here taken as a challenge to see how many types of play one can smash together. It’s rare to catch a production both obsessed with the art of the artform and equally unconcerned with any hindrance to complete amusement—an experiment that succeeds by leaps and bounds.

Fat Ham runs at The Unicorn through June 8, with tickets available here.

Photo by Don Ipock