We\u2019re invited to a backyard barbecue to celebrate the recent wedding of a mother who married her recently murdered husband\u2019s brother. The mom\u2019s son, Juice, is not happy about his uncle becoming his stepdad, and even less happy when his dad\u2019s ghost appears to him and demands that Juice avenge his murder.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Just as you might imagine, family drama ensues. If the 2022 Pulitzer Prize-winning \u201cFat Ham<\/a>,\u201d now playing at Capital Stage, sounds like Shakespeare\u2019s \u201cHamlet\u201d, that\u2019s because some of playwright James Ijames\u2019 plot and character personalities mirror those of the play. Never fear, though \u2014 there is no need to read the Bard before visiting CapStage.\u00a0<\/p>\n The title \u201cFat Ham\u201d works two ways \u2014 a nod to \u201cHamlet\u201d and a nod to the Southern Black family\u2019s barbecue background.\u00a0<\/p>\n Juice (James Simpson), the Hamlet of \u201cFat Ham\u201d, is a self-conscious gay Black college student afraid to come out to his family. Which is understandable when you first meet the family \u2014 each character has a distinct personality, whose own backgrounds and secrets are slowly revealed.\u00a0<\/p>\n Juice is quite the mama\u2019s boy \u2014 mama being Tedra (Brooklynn T. Solomon), who declares she married her murdered husband\u2019s brother Rev (Brandon Rubin) because she needs a companion. Though Tedra declares herself dependent on men, she\u2019s actually quite feisty and showboaty.\u00a0<\/p>\n Juice\u2019s Uncle Rev tries to jump way too soon into the uncle-turned-dad role, but it\u2019s soon revealed he\u2019s quite the asshole. The conflict escalates as the quiet, self-effacing Juice finally finds his voice.\u00a0<\/p>\n The other characters include Juice\u2019s cousins Opal (Kali Honeywood) and Larry (Tarig Elsiddig), Aunt Rabby (Sen\u00e9 Goss), and Cousin Tio (Xzavier Beacham). Opal is open-minded and outspoken, while Larry is a Marine trying to figure out his own identity. Rabby is more the church lady and wannabe peacemaker, and Tio brings light and laughter to the barbecue.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Conversations revolve around family, food, fights and fate as the audience is brought into another culture. There is a lot of salty, strong language and cultural slang, with lots of humor sprinkled throughout.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Each of the actors works both in their own character development as well as interacting within the cacophony of the family gathering. Simpson as Juice is mostly the quiet observer, sometimes speaking directly to the audience, but it\u2019s satisfying to see him slowly emerge with confidence.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Director Anthony D\u2019Juan has a challenge \u2014 with so many characters with their own strong personalities, it must be like herding cats. But D\u2019Juan proves to be an excellent cat wrangler, allowing the cast to capture their individual characters as well as interacting with each other.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The simple set, which never changes because all action plays out in the same backyard, includes the backdrop of a house looking out to a yard with a barbecue, picnic tables and chairs. The colorful party decorations of balloons and streamers welcome the guests to the party.\u00a0<\/p>\n The play runs 90 minutes with no intermission. There is an American Sign Language interpretation during the April 18 performance. \u202f\u201cFat Ham<\/a>\u201d plays at Capital Stage through April 19; Wednesdays to Fridays, 7 p.m., Saturdays, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Sundays 2 p.m. 2215 J St.\u00a0<\/p>\n This story is part of the Solving Sacramento <\/a>journalism collaborative. This story was funded by the City of Sacramento\u2019s Arts and Creative Economy Journalism Grant to Solving Sacramento<\/a>. Following our journalism code of ethics, the city had no editorial influence over this story. Our partners include California Groundbreakers, Capital Public Radio, Hmong Daily News, Outword, Russian America Media, Sacramento Business Journal, Sacramento News & Review and Sacramento Observer. Sign up for our \u201cSac Art Pulse\u201d newsletter here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We\u2019re invited to a backyard barbecue to celebrate the recent wedding of a mother who married her recently…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-243417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}