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[0:00] Juan Michael Porter II: Hello and welcome to the Critics' Table.

[0:02] Juan Michael Porter II: Every episode we are joined by three luminary theater critics as they review the latest shows on and off Broadway.

[0:10] Juan Michael Porter II: You may agree with one, all of them, or none at all, but we ask that you listen first and ask questions later.

[0:17] Juan Michael Porter II: Let's join the table, shall we?

[0:20] Juan Michael Porter II: Welcome to the Critics' Table, a new podcast where we discuss the hottest shows in New York.

[0:25] Juan Michael Porter II: I'm Juan Michael Porter II, and today we are discussing Fat Ham.

[0:30] Juan Michael Porter II: Our additional guests today are Christian Lewis and Ekemini Ekpo.

[0:35] Juan Michael Porter II: Awesome. And let's hear a quick description of Fat Ham.

[0:38] Juan Michael Porter II: Critically acclaimed playwright James Ijames reinvents Shakespeare's masterpiece with his new drama, Fat Ham.

[0:45] Juan Michael Porter II: Juicy is a queer Southern college kid already grappling with some serious questions of identity when the ghost of his father shows up in their backyard demanding that Juicy avenges his murder.

[0:58] Juan Michael Porter II: It feels like a familiar story to Juicy, well versed in Hamlet's woes.

[1:02] Juan Michael Porter II: What's different is Juicy himself, a sensitive and self-aware young Black man trying to break the cycles of trauma and violence in service of his own liberation.

[1:11] Juan Michael Porter II: So let's jump right in. What are our initial thoughts?

[1:14] Christian Lewis: I felt like I was on a roller coaster from the beginning to end. It was kooky, it was absurd, it felt like a party. I felt as though I was included in the party that was occurring on stage.

[1:36] Christian Lewis: Yeah, I loved this so much. I sometimes get a little Shakespeare fatigue, being someone who sees so, so, so many plays. However, this was my favorite Shakespeare adaptation I've ever seen by far. I loved this so much. It was both Hamlet and not at all Hamlet.

[1:56] Christian Lewis: I love the way that Shakespeare was used and kind of like disavowed of like, we don't need him here, we're gonna do our own thing at some times. It made it so it was actually a Black family doing their version of what this Hamlet myth of trauma is, and it worked so well the way that this translated.

[2:16] Christian Lewis: It was a beautiful production that had so much nuance and really spoke to all the complexities of these characters and their identities and their race and their queerness and their class differences and their religiousness and spirituality and everything was put in there all together and it was never overstuffed. It was like the perfect amount.

[2:38] Christian Lewis: And yes, I feel like I was at this picnic and was very happy to be included in this celebration and this struggle that they go through.

[2:47] Ekemini Ekpo: Absolutely all of this in my review for Into More, I of course sing so many praises, and what stays with me again is that we as an audience who were both familiar and unfamiliar are invited to the cookout and become members of the family as well.

[3:02] Ekemini Ekpo: Sometimes the actress actually turn to us, which I thought was like, wow, they were really breaking this the fourth wall in such a specific way that is not normally done, and pulling us in and saying, like, oh no, you were complicit in this, and I see you watching me, and I want you to know that I see you, and I don't care about your judgments.

[3:17] Ekemini Ekpo: And my full on thoughts were this is actually what I want theater to be, a wild ride that just takes me and like keeps me, as you pointed out, like so excited for more. And I think that you can't really talk about the show without talking about Saheem Ali and his seamless direction, how he just keeps the story ever flowing, and I'm going to get over the top singing praises.

[3:42] Ekemini Ekpo: So, so like, let's actually talk about some stand-up moments for us before I go off the wall.

[3:46] Christian Lewis: Yeah, for a stand-up moment. I don't want to reveal anything, but I'll say the ending is amazing, and I absolutely loved it. And I will be cryptic about what that means, but go see it.

[3:56] Christian Lewis: Other than that, I loved as much as this wasn't Shakespeare, the like two or three really sneaky times when they just give us a full Hamlet soliloquy, but they do it in a like, I'm gonna hold a karaoke mic dramatic light, wink at the audience and be like, yeah, Hamlet says the soliloquy. I'm gonna say it now.

[4:14] Christian Lewis: And Juan Michael, like you mentioned, the meta-theater of it, the way that it breaks the fourth wall was like, whoa! It's in a small theater at the public, and so it felt very intimate to have the fourth wall broken, and then to have an acknowledgement of the fourth wall broken.

[4:29] Christian Lewis: There are several moments when some actor is directly speaking to the audience, and another actor will enter and say, like, what did you tell them about me? And I was like, Oh my god, what's happening? I love that.

[4:39] Christian Lewis: So those were moments that definitely stuck with me. The character of Juicy is so alt and so, I guess in a way, kind of the black sheep of his community, and there's a moment around the middle of the play where he's presenting this ballad, and it's in of itself its own soliloquy, and the lighting changes, the rest of the picnic attendees have choreography, and it's a beautiful performance, kind of technically, both in acting and in singing, but it's also just feels like it taps into the heart of Juicy's experience in his family, Juicy's experience in relation to these changes that are occurring around him.

[5:26] Ekemini Ekpo: For me, it was one of the most beautiful moments of the play. There is a moment where a character is high and he speaks about receiving fellatio and how it wasn't what he expected, and what could have been upsetting, he says, What if we chose pleasure over harm?

[5:45] Ekemini Ekpo: And I saw it again yesterday, and again the audience went so silent afterwards. Like it's so funny, and then suddenly it's like you could hear a pin drop. And that is actually the crux of it for me, which I've found so healing. Of what if instead of responding to these things that happened as if they were somehow offensive and hurtful, we chose pleasure and decided to walk away from this decision to be harmful towards each other, and is especially considering what we're going through right now in modern society.

[6:16] Ekemini Ekpo: Like I was attacked on the bus by someone who was mentally unwell, and that moment stayed with me and actually gave me the like wherewithal to walk away from that moment. And I find myself applying lessons from this play in my daily life.

[6:30] Ekemini Ekpo: I will literally have something that occurred within the play sort of manifest. I'm like, yeah, no, I've actually been taught how to process this in a way that I was never taught as a child. And I know that sounds crazy, but this is the sort of theater that is giving me the lessons that I needed as a kid.

[6:44] Juan Michael Porter II: And could we speak to the technical elements that were really wowing you all?

[6:50] Christian Lewis: Yeah, I really agree. Artie mentioned the lighting was very cool. There was a lot of non-realistic lighting that got colorful and moody, and then there was these Edison bulbs that were like hidden up there for any time the ghost came in, which I really loved.

[7:05] Christian Lewis: Not to let I guess to break up my otherwise effusive praise here, but I really was not into the set design at all. And I think it was because of the very small space it was in. I think in a bigger space, the set could have been a little more realistically rendered, a little bigger of a yard, a bit nicer, conceived of like the details of the house.

[7:27] Christian Lewis: It was I get why they had to do it because of the space, and because there's a certain thing that happens at the end, but of the set was my least favorite part of the show.

[7:37] Ekemini Ekpo: But there was a lot of great design here. I do have one add-on note about the set, and on a whole, I might actually disagree with you. I think abundance of content in the play itself lends itself to kind of the almost larger than life feeling that the set evokes within the small space that it's in.

[7:57] Ekemini Ekpo: But there is one quibble that I did have with the set. There are windows and a screen door in the set that are front-on, that are like real windows and a real entrance and exit. But the rendering of the house itself on the screen that it was on was slightly slanted. So that was actually one thing that I kept noticing was that the windows and the doors didn't actually quite fit into the screen printing as it was rendered on stage. So that might be my singular critique of the production. And we love disagreement here. Interestingly, I love the set from the perspective of a sort of like, oh, we're literally seeing a 2D rendering of a 3D thing, and like watching that together. That said, I can also imagine it being otherwise.

I just I was so in love with that conceptually, and I hope that this gets a Broadway run, which is why we are definitely being sort of like, don't want to tell you too much about it. I also love the actual artifice of it of like, oh yeah, we are not going out of the way to make this super nice because for these people, this is the most that they have. Um, and that it reminded me of being at certain cookouts where this is their grand gathering, and what makes it grand is the people, not the actual like possessions that they have. Um that said, I I'm not going to be someone who says, like, oh, it has to be this set every single time, you know. Like, who knows what what it will be when it hopefully transfers to Broadway.

But I gotta say, yeah, on that point, it's not like separately credited, but I'll say, while I didn't like this some of the set details, I loved the set dressing, the like furniture they used. I love that this was a cookout where they were like, here's a folding table, here's like five chairs that don't match, here's some like various decorations we got at Party City that are maybe not all for a wedding. I loved all of the really tiny details. There's a ton of food they use in this play in a really great way that made me so hungry. And I want like an immersive production of this play where we like get to eat the food. Uh so like all of the other details were like actually very, very spot on in creating the world, even if I didn't love the like house set. But all of the rest was very well done and rendered in a really realistic way.

[10:17] Juan Michael Porter II: I'm wondering what would you want an audience to take away from this? Like, or are there any things that you feel like you saw in particular that you're like, hey, make sure you hone in on this if you get to see the show?

[10:27] Ekemini Ekpo: I like want people who know and don't know Shakespeare, but really kind of know Shakespeare to see this and be like, look what else we can do with this white man's great plays. Because they're great plays, but like we can do other stuff with them. And I've been non-stop praising Kenny Leon's Much Ado at the Park since it happened. But now I'm like, we can take this even a step further and look at Jocelyn Ryo's Merrywise and look at this Fat Ham and be like, we can just like drop Shakespeare a little bit and just use inspiration and go completely beyond that, bring this into new places and let Shakespeare's play say even more things that they maybe couldn't say before when they were just all about white people.

I think that's something that struck me was the simultaneously great reverence for Shakespeare that must have existed for this play to even come to fruition. And simultaneously, this great irreverence that allowed the playwright and the actors to take ownership of this material. I think, as like Black creatives, it's really lovely to me to watch them take ownership of material that isn't really intended for us or wasn't created with us in mind. I think the I guess rejection of tragedy for this for the mere sake of tragedy, or because that's how it's somehow destined or ordained to be, especially in relation to talking about Black people, is extremely satisfying.

[12:07] Christian Lewis: You know, both of those, yes. Particularly because Shakespeare himself was taking original source material and doing his own thing with them. And we living in this moment in time where we have the Supreme Court justices saying that's not what the Constitution intended when the Constitution didn't actually consider our existence. Taking something and doing more with it than was intended by the original writers, because they could not conceive of this beautiful future that we have right now. And within that something that I really want people to focus on that I noticed was that Juicy is this sensitive, delicate young man, but he also has a huge capacity for cruelty. And I think that sometimes that gets missed out on that, even among sensitive people that they don't recognize the harm that they do, and that it's a choice that they can make not to continue to inflict that harm. And this conversation is giving me therapy again.

[13:00] Juan Michael Porter II: So what are some of our final thoughts? I don't know what I can add that is more effusive than legitimizing this play's Pulitzer Prize. This play is a whole lot of fun. I would go with your friends, go with your family, go with people you love to spend time with. Because you'll love to spend time with the players in this play. And I think Tio says it to approach this play from a space of abundance. And yeah, go see the show. Gosh, something that I've just been continually saying, I reviewed this through Theater Mania and I said something similar there that this is one of the most well-deserved Pulitzer prizes in my time as a theater critic. I remember when the prizes were announced, and I hadn't seen this play yet.

And I was like, wait, there were so many great things that I saw this year. Why didn't you pick one of those? And then I saw this and I was like, nope. This 100% wins. My gosh, like, yes, I really love Sonatusie's English. I really love Sanctuary City, but like this, this is what I want the Pulitzer to be. So well deserved. It's probably very difficult to get a ticket to this play. But if you are listening to this podcast, stop what you're doing right now and go try to get a ticket at The Public because it is the thing to see right now. You will not regret it. This is what theater is supposed to do. It is supposed to teach you, heal you, make you question yourself. I actually took my former partner with me because I wanted him to be healed in the same way, in a similar way that I was, and I think that it did something to him, opened him up in a way. And that is what theater ultimately is about, that transmission of ideas that expand us and show us that we can be other.

[14:37] Juan Michael Porter II: Thank you so much for this conversation today, you all. I'm Juan Michael Porter the Second. If you'd like to follow me, I'm on Twitter at Juan Michael Porter II. I write for Did They Like It, Theaterly, New York Theater Guide, and other publications.

[14:50] Ekemini Ekpo: Hey y'all, my name is Ekemini Ekpo. You can catch me online at e.u.ecpo on Instagram. I'm a freelance theater critic. I recently participated in the BIPOC Critics Lab and held an IG live with HowlRound Theatre Commons.

[15:07] Christian Lewis: I'm Christian Lewis. I'm also a freelance theater critic. I write for Did They Like It, Theatre Mania, Theaterly, Variety, and follow me on Twitter at CLewisReviews.

[15:18] Juan Michael Porter II: Thanks for joining us on this episode of the Critics' Table Podcast. We would like to thank Jose Solis and the BIPOC Critics Lab team who have generously partnered with us on this project. You can find out more about the BIPOC Critics Lab at bipoccriticslab.com. Also be sure to subscribe to this podcast so that you never miss a review and learn more about our critics at bpn.fm/slashcriticstable. The views or opinions expressed by the critics in this episode, they are solely their own and do not necessarily represent views or opinions of the Broadway Podcast Network. See you next time.