The Geffen Playhouse’s Gil Cates Theatre presented a flamboyant, dazzling production of a ‘modern day Hamlet,’ “Fat Ham.” Written by James Ijames and directed by Sideeq Heard, the show was a powerful, poetic paeon to the most brilliant of playwrights, William Shakespeare. In this Pulitzer Prize winning farce, the locale has been relocated to an outside barbecue, where the lead, Juicy , (Marcel Spears), humorously recites, “ah, there’s the rub,” a keen play on words. Death and destruction are still dominant themes, even in levity, with clever lines of dialogue, like “We all are supposed to die,” and “Death suits him well,” when referring to Juicy (Fat Ham’s) ghost, Pap(Billy Eugene Jones), who shows up in the backyard when least expected, by both cast onstage and audience seated. The characters each lament on how lonely and confused they are: “Does it get any better than this?” and “I know it’s hard being someone like you , like a lost generation.” It touches on being a play within a play, when the characters humorously banter, “If you bring up Shakespeare one more time… I grieve for and miss Ham(let), and pray there’s no ‘pox on their house.’ Tedra (Nikki Crawford) insists on moving on, stating, “You can’t let grief consume you, like inherited trauma.” Since she, in no uncertain terms, “is not built to be alone,” she moves from her daddy’s house directly to her husband’s house, and in turn, to his brother’s house. She rationalizes by saying, “they did it in the Bible all the time.” An age old story of fathers and sons. “When the father thinks it’s too heavy, and the son, too light, it’s a compromise, neither too heavy nor light. Tio, the brother, is impeccably played by Chris Herbie Holland, and is obviously a modern day Horatio. One of the most humorous segments is when this play within a play transforms into a lively game of charades, and, later, a karaoke party. On the night I attended, it was clear that the audience laughs and celebrates right along with the zany shenanigans onstage, letting the levity breathe through the darker themes. To choose life over death, as life is not a dress rehearsal, to choose ‘to be,’ rather than ‘not to be.’
Through May 5th
http://www.Geffen playhouse.org
Bonnie Priever Curtain Up 