If a mash-up of Shakespeare, karaoke Radiohead and gaming, set at a family barbecue right out of Tyler Perry, ain't yo' thang, stay for the deconstruction of masculinity and the ecstatic curtain closer that demonstrates how military uniforms are just another form of drag. With Fat Ham, James Ijames, who teaches drama at Villanova University, proves George Bernard Shaw wrong ("those who can, do; those who can't, teach"). He has turned Hamlet into a Pulitzer-Prize-winning comedy with its mind less on poetic language (though, there's that, too) than contemporary resonance for us dithering folks who don't live in castles or rule kingdoms. Chris Herbie Holland's soliloquy on gingerbread men elicited amens from a mostly aged white audience and Benja Kay Thomas slays as a church lady with secret. If Ijames doesn't quite achieve profundity, he kept me awake which Shakespeare rarely does.
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