Revenge is Mad Hard

In April of 2021, a small theatre in Philadelphia took a big risk: The Wilma premiered a new play called Fat Ham by a then-almost-unknown playwright, James Ijames. Fat Ham reconfigures the story of Hamlet through the lens of a family barbeque in the American South. In Ijames’ play, Shakespeare’s protagonist becomes a fat, queer, Black man named Juicy. Juicy’s mother has just married his uncle in the wake of his father’s murder and Juicy himself is still dealing with grief about these events and the generational trauma they amplify as he strives for some thread of hope. The play made big waves; Ijames won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and it was nominated for five Tony awards in 2023.

Fat Ham represents a major intervention in the ways we discuss storytelling, adaptation, and canon as it reclaims a major piece of cultural capital for several intersections of marginalized voices. This collection of essay offers perspectives on the play’s early life as well as creates a major theoretical framework for future discussions of Fat Ham in scholarship.The essay featured in Revenge is Mad Hard: Fat Ham and the Question of Cultural Reclamation address the intersecting themes of Adaptation, Performance, Identity, and Southerness. Each of these sections work to more fully specify and develop the themes of Fat Ham in the greater sphere of literary and performance studies.

Valerie Clayman Pye is an Associate Professor of Theatre and Chair of the Department of Theatre, Dance, and Arts Management at Long Island University, USA.

Danielle Rosvally is an Assistant Professor of Theatre at the University at Buffalo, USA.