Black Arts and Culture

FAT HAM – At The Wells Theatre: Secrets Of A Black Family; A Young Man’s Healing

Virginia Stage Company brings Fat Ham, James Ijames’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play, to Norfolk’s Wells Theatre. A powerful blend of comedy and drama, the play reimagines Hamlet through a Black, queer lens, tackling family wounds, self-acceptance, and healing.
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Special to the Guide

NORFOLK
Maybe you think Shakespeare isn’t relevant to your life today. But for playwright James Ijames, the plot of Shakespeare’s murderous tragedy Hamlet makes a brilliant place to begin a comedy about Black families and queer life. The resulting work, Fat Ham, won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize and got rave reviews on Broadway, where The New York Times called it “a raucous, flat-out hilarious comedy” and the Daily Beast hailed the play as “delicious, funny and piercingly moving – a celebration as thoughtful as it is irreverent.”

Now this story, filled with characters you might just recognize from your own life, comes to Norfolk’s historic Wells Theatre in a new Virginia Stage Company production.

At the heart of this acclaimed play is Juicy, a young man who’s struggling to be understood by his family, who’s struggling with his own self-acceptance around being gay. Juicy is troubled by many things, including the fact that his father was recently murdered in prison, and his mother has – indecently quickly, in Juicy’s opinion – married her husband’s younger brother. When Juicy’s dad’s ghost shows up at the family barbecue, urging his son to seek revenge on his killer, well … things get complicated.

Laughter abounds in Fat Ham, and laughter is healing. Jerrell L. Henderson, who directs the Virginia Stage Company production, says the play is filled with moments that resonate.

“Like many of us, the characters in this play are hurting from something generational. And when those echoes of the past find their way into the comments that your Aunt makes that cut you, or you make to a sibling or a cousin, they cut because these are old wounds that we’re still carrying. In this play, Ijames is saying: ‘I see that old wound. I’m going to touch on that wound, so you can be healed, and be free.’”

“You haven’t seen a play like this before,” says Henderson. “It’s a Black Black comedy, a satirical, dark comedy about Black people. Those are very rare. And it’s fun.”

Fat Ham runs from January 29 to February 16 at the Wells Theatre. Tickets are on sale now, online at vastage.org, by phone at (757) 627-1234, or in person (Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.) at the Wells Theatre, 108 E. Tazewell St., Norfolk.

For a calendar of Fat Ham performances and news of other upcoming Virginia Stage Company plays, visit vastage.org.