"Fat Ham" at Roundabout

Roundabout production photo by Joan Marcus

I've been looking forward to this one. I've been interested in James Ijames's work since seeing Kill Move Paradise several years ago, and since Fat Ham is meant to be a riff on Hamlet, I thought it ought to be a good time.

The Play

This is, in many ways, Hamlet, but set in the American South sometime in the last half century or so. The central character, Juicy, is working with his friend Tio set up the back yard for a wedding reception. Juicy's father, Pap, died in prison only a few days ago, but his mother, Tedra, has suddenly married Pap's brother, Rev. Rev has also taken over the family BBQ business. The other guest for the wedding reception are the loquatious Rabby and her grown children, Opal and Larry.

Of course, Pap's ghost appears (first to Tio, then to Juicy), revealing that his murder was set up by Rev, and that Juicy must avenge him by killing Rev, smoking the body and eating the meat. Needless to say, Juicy has reservations about all that. Next we learn that Tedra and Rev have siphoned off the money that Juicy was using to pay for his online college studies in Human Resources to pay for the wedding and some renovations on their house.

So Juicy has plenty of motivation to get rid of Rev, but he's still not terribly inclined to do so. We learn a fair amount about his long-time friendships with Tio and Opal and Larry while Tedra and Rev show off their home improvements and such. There are nods to Hamlet throughout, which is fun, and also provides some guideposts to where Ijames is both following and varying the plot of Shakespeare's play.

Overall I found it very cleverly written.

The Production

The whole play is set in the back yard of Tedra's house, with a good-sized porch dominated by a big BBQ smoker. The lawn around it has various accoutrements for a party, and big sliding doors lead into the house. It's pretty simple, but evocative. Marcel Spears is really good as Juicy, bright but brooding, and definitely in control of his faculties. Nikki Crawford (Tedra) and Billy Eugene Jones (Pap/Rev) play way over the top, in ways that manage to be both goofy and menacing at the same time. Add in the incessant babbling of Rabby (a wonderful Benja Kay Thomas), and the older generation is clearly the source of everyone's issues. Meanwhile, the taciturn Marine Larry (Calvin Leon Smith), the sullen teen Opal (Adrianna Mitchell), and the loose, stoned, inappropriate Tio (Chris Herbie Holland) provide the grounding that Juicy really needs.

The whole production under the direction of Saheem Ali (who directed Goddess at Berkeley Rep last year) does a great job of balancing the familiar threads of Hamlet with enough surprises and twists to keep us on our toes and make sure we understand where Ijames is taking us with his retelling. By making the ghost scenes comical and putting more emphasis on Juicy's relationships with his younger peers (especially Larry), /Fat Ham/ explores story lines that many recognize in Shakespeare's play, but without needing to inject too much extraneous material. It's really quite a remarkable job of writing and producing.

The Bottom Line

I really liked this show. Nearly all the actors are making their Broadway debuts in this production, but all are worthy of being there. The blending of the familiar aspects of the classic Shakespeare play with a very specific family story in a particular time and place brings out both the universality of Shakespeare's story elements and adds extra power to Ijames's riff. The audience was delighted, and deservedly so.

All told, I thought this was great, and look forward to seeing this play again sometime. I expect it will make it to the Bay Area before too long. Check it out!

"Primary Trust" at Roundabout

 

Roundabout production photo by Joan Marcus

Roundabout has long been one of our favorite NYC theater companies, in part because they generally do interesting shows, and also because they are one of the few non-profit theater companies that straddles the Broadway/Off-Broadway divide. I really appreciate their ability to bring less commercial products to the Broadway audience.

Primary Trust is at one of their off-Broadway facilities, the Laura Pels Theatre, which is definitely one of their smaller houses. But it allows them to do some things that just wouldn't work in a big Broadway barn. This show, for example, has a cast of only five actors, and would just disappear on a huge Broadway stage.

The Play

This is one of those plays where I came in knowing basically nothing, and was well into it before I resigned myself to that feeling. Primary Trust by Eboni Booth is a very unusual play. It's almost like it doesn't have the proverbial fourth wall--the main character, Kenneth, addresses the audience from the moment he steps onstage. But at the same time, he's a very unreliable narrator of his own life, despite coming clean with us right off about his only friend, Bert, being imaginary.

So this is a peek into the mind and life of a quite offbeat person, orphaned young in a small town in upstate New York, he's spent his entire life since age 10 either in an orphanage or working in a used bookstore for a guy who doesn't care whether Kenneth talks to his imaginary friend. But now the store is closing, and Kenneth has to face life

Up to now, his only coping mechanisms are talking with Bert and going to happy hour at Wally's, the local tiki bar, drinking mai tais in great quantity. All of this has to change now. And change it does, as Kenneth lands a job working in a bank (called Primary Trust, hence the name of the play) after a tip from one of the wait staff at Wally's.

The ensuing action is odd and disconcerting in many ways, even when it's encouraging and uplifting. I've really not experienced anything like it, and it was truly interesting.

The Production

Nice and simple. The set is a small version of Cranberry, NY, Kenneth's hometown, and the occasional table, desk or chairs show up to represent various venues, and eventually Kenneth's teller window at the bank. But that's about it. William Jackson Harper does a remarkable job as Kenneth, both as the slow, damaged individual we come to know, but also showing flashes of the Kenneth who demonstrates himself to be something of a retail banking savant, flipping back and forth almost instantaneously. Equally impressive is April Matthis as a whole parade of Kenneth's servers at Wally's, jumping in an instant among genders, ages, races, and so on. It's really quite remarkable.

Bert (Eric Berryman) is a constant presence, at least for a while, and dovetails nicely into Kenneth's life during interviews and other events. And Jay O. Sanders fills in as various of Kenneth's employers and a few other niche roles quite effectively.  All of this is backed by a musician, Luke Wygodny, who also serve as something of a stage manager for Kenneth's life.

Director Knud Adams keeps this moving reasonably well, though the pace drags a bit in a few places. But even in slower-paced scenes, the actors keep things interesting--there are some truly pregnant pauses throughout.

Bottom Line

I thought this was a really good and interesting play, and the production was really effective. It's not earth-shaking, brilliant literature, but it's a unique take on the sort of person who doesn't really attract the attention of playwrights or audiences for the most part. In that sense, it's quite unlike nearly every play you can see.

So as long as you're looking for something small and interesting, this is a good option. The show runs through July 2 at the Roundabout's Laura Pels Theatre in the heart of the theater district. Well worth the time if you're in the area.

"Travesties" at Roundabout Theatre Company

Roundabout photo by Joan Marcus

It's no surprise to anyone around here that I like Tom Stoppard plays a lot. And Travesties is one of my personal favorites. So a chance to see the Broadway revival at Roundabout was one of the main excuses for our recent venture to New York City. One of the things I like about the play is that it stands up to a variety of stagings. The first I saw, years ago, was a really stripped-down version at Actor's Ensemble of Berkeley that really let the audience focus on Stoppard's words more than the production details. This Broadway production is quite the opposite, but it works, too.

The Play

Among the things I love about Travesties is that it might be the quintessential Stoppard play: witty dialog, interesting characters drawn from actual people, intellectual topics, and a realization as you go that things are not what you thought they were.

The central character in the play is Henry Carr, an Englishman who served in The Great War, getting injured and ending up in Zurich for the duration. While much of the play takes place in Zurich in 1917, we also see Carr as an older man, looking back on those "great days." Carr may be one of my favorite unreliable narrators of his own life in theater (director Patrick Marber calls Travesties "a misremembered memory play" and "A memory play remembered by an amnesiac."). While in Zurich, Carr crosses paths with the writer James Joyce, Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, and Dadaist Tristan Tzara. It's a colorful cast of characters, supplemented by riffs and references to Shaw's The Importance of Being Earnest.

It's hard to give a really meaningful, short summary of the play, so I won't even try here. Suffice it to say that as the characters meet and interact in various locations in Zurich, there is ample opportunity for Stoppard to play with the people, their language, and our expectations. Add in a particularly well-informed butler, a flirtatious librarian, and some other pretensions, and you have the ingredients for a classic Stoppard comedy.

The Production

We've seen a number of Roundabout productions in recent years and been generally pleased with all of them. Travesties was no exception. The set design is pretty straightforward, allowing all the scenes to take place in the same space, without requiring set changes. Ultimately, it's all taking place in Carr's head, so the fact that it's a single, jumbled, untidy space that serves as home, library, cafe, and wherever else it needs to be at the moment is fine. Lighting and costumes are quite effective, too.

But the acting is where the rubber really hits the road. The key is Tom Hollander as Carr. He manages to morph quite deftly from the aging, forgetful Carr into his youthful, wartime self. The plasticity of his face and his body movements are really quite stunning and effective. And Carr is the key to the whole enterprise. The surrounding characters manage to be persuasive while resisting the temptation to fly over the top. Tzara, in particular, almost begs to be ridiculous, but Marber doesn't let actor Seth Numrich get out of hand. Same with Peter McDonald as Joyce and Dan Butler as Lenin. Any of those roles could descend into parody, but Marber keeps everyone to a relatively ordered level of insanity.

I particularly appreciated the musical riffs that make some of the scenes into little tableaux from a kind of Vaudevillian, music-hall style melodrama featuring Cecily (Sara Topham) and Gwendolyn (Scarlett Strallen)--very charming, very Earnest. And the droll butler Bennett (Patrick Kerr) is quite wonderful.

I could go on, but suffice it to say it's wonderful interpretation of the play, neatly and efficiently directed and designed.

Bottom Line

I liked it a lot. Go see it.

OK, that's a bit simplistic, but really, it is a lovely rendition of one of my favorite plays by my favorite playwright--what did you think I was going to say?

Sadly, the show closed last weekend. I'm glad we got to see it.