Broadway Breakdown: "FAT HAM" w/ Jayson Kerr

Host: Matt Koplik
Guest: Jayson Kerr
Date: November 14, 2024

Episode Overview

Matt Koplik welcomes first-time guest and veteran podcaster Jayson Kerr for a raucous, passionate, and insightful conversation about James Ijames's Pulitzer-winning play Fat Ham. Known for his deep-dive, sharp-tongued, and hilariously explicit take on Broadway, Matt uses this "Grab Bag" episode to give overdue attention to contemporary plays on Broadway—with Fat Ham front and center. The episode delivers background on the play, breaks down its plot and structure, examines its innovative adaptation of Hamlet, and digs into its themes of family, trauma, queerness, Black joy, and breaking cycles—sprinkled with theater gossip, wit, deep analysis, and irreverent banter.

Main Discussion & Key Insights

1. Why Fat Ham?

• Play Selection Mandate: Matt wanted listeners to include at least one play in submissions for the "Grab Bag" series, to address the underrepresentation of plays on the show.

• Matt: "Broadway isn’t just musicals ... And we are in a renaissance of American playwriting." [06:07]

• Jayson: "The plays were the thing that saved my sanity last year ... Are you saying that the play’s the thing?" [06:24–06:29]

• Both agree that while musicals have felt underwhelming in recent years, new American plays like Fat Ham are pushing boundaries and invigorating the stage.

2. What is Fat Ham? (Plot, Structure, and Tone)

• Fat Ham is "not an adaptation of Hamlet. It is using Hamlet as a vehicle to tell a story about a family," Jayson explains.
  [07:16]
• It’s a Black, queer, modern riff on Hamlet, but meta, campy, and frequently breaks the fourth wall.
• Matt describes it as "the skeleton with which the play dresses itself on, but it is not a direct [adaptation]." [07:18]
• The play takes place largely at a barbecue, fusing heavy Hamlet themes with Black Southern family culture and humor.
• The main character, Juicy, knows he’s in a version of Hamlet and spends the play trying to avoid Hamlet’s tragic fate: "The play is him knowing that he’s supposed to die and trying to figure out how not to." [26:09]

3. The Pulitzer & Breaking Expectations

• Discussion of Fat Ham’s Pulitzer Prize win and the audience expectations it created:
  • Matt describes reading early message boards: "People went in then going, oh, well, this is the Pulitzer winner. This is the highbrow, suffering play ... and there are people ... writing after, being disappointed because they were like, I don’t know, it was fun, but that won the Pulitzer?" [09:04]
  • He frames this expectation as exactly what the play is interrogating and rebuffing—who gets to define "important" or "worthy" art.
• Comparison with other Pulitzer winners, the quirks of the award, and the context of Black theater post-pandemic.

4. Fat Ham’s Characters: Modern Hamlet, Blackness, & Queerness

• Juicy: The Hamlet figure; "a beautiful, lonely, smart, kind of Hamlet." (Matt reads the script's blurb). [29:31]
• Teedra (Gertrude type): A "good mother," self-aware, traumatized, seeking comfort in chaos.
• Rev (Claudius type)/Pap (Ghost): Rev, Teedra’s new husband and Juicy’s uncle; Pap is Juicy’s father’s ghost—played by the same actor. Pap was abusive and hard; Rev is controlling in a different, more mental way.
• Opal and Larry (Ophelia/Laertes types): Sibling friends to Juicy, each with their own queer narrative and familial struggles.
• Rabby (Polonius): Churchy, opinionated, comedic, a sharp observer of Juicy and Opal.
• Tio (Horatio): Comic relief and wise "fool"; provides some of the play’s deepest insights through his stoner wisdom.
• They discuss the richness and flexibility in the casting ("Tio clever, 20–40 ... we're just having fun with that age, right?" [31:20]) and the subversions of the Shakespeare originals.

5. Trauma, Cycles, and Breaking Patterns

• Fat Ham explores cycles of trauma, especially within Black families and communities.
  • Jayson: "It’s like a term paper on trauma in the family ... breaking the cycle of family trauma, which is eternal, universal." [33:12]
  • Matt: "Inherited trauma ... [manifests] in you because that shit does. It changes your DNA." [34:07]
• The play spotlights the pressure to suppress emotion, especially for Black men, and the consequences ("Crying is a natural response ... you need to let it out, because if you don’t, it will fucking eat you." [35:02])
• This theme is structurally underscored: Juicy actively works to resist the expected tragic conclusion of Hamlet—a metaphor for breaking inherited destructive cycles.

6. Religion, Generational Shifts, and Community

• The hypocrisy and flexibility of religious justification is lampooned (e.g., justifying Teedra’s quick remarriage):
  • "They did it in the Bible all the time ..." [55:13]
• The concept of chosen family versus blood relatives recurs; Juicy and Opal’s friendship shows the importance of LGBTQ+ community and "chosen" bonds ("There’s a difference between a family and a relative. Family is someone who’s there for you, a relative is someone who shows up for you in a blood test or when someone dies." [63:04])

7. Meta-Theatricality & Humor

• Fat Ham blends earthy, queer humor with poignant family drama, surprising audiences expecting "serious" Pulitzer fare.
• Quips abound about barbecue sauce, family dysfunction, OnlyFans, and theater community rivalries, keeping the discussion lively and true to the original’s playful tone.
• Juicy’s status as narrator and frequent breaker of the fourth wall highlights both his control and alienation.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the role of trauma (Jayson):
  "Watching it today, I didn’t even notice how well they set it up ... breaking the cycle of family trauma, which is eternal." [33:12]

• On Fat Ham’s adaptation (Matt):
  "Where it is not a direct adaptation is where James Ijames is like, let me have fun." [57:12]

• On Black joy:
  Matt: "A rare Pulitzer winner for a Black story that isn’t about pain—it’s finding joy through trauma. It’s not about the trauma." [150:17]
  Jayson: "The joy, the joy." [150:18]

• On the show’s ending:
  "They choose life ... Fat Ham ends with joy. Remember, these are people. And remember, it’s funny as fuck." [151:41–152:04]

• On the generational shift:
  "You want me to respect you? Act in a way that’s worthy of respect." [63:03]

Timestamped Highlights

• 00:30–03:00: Hilarious intro, LaChiusa musical anecdotes
• 06:07: Why cover plays? The state of new American playwriting
• 07:16–08:05: Fat Ham’s meta structure and what the play is "about"
• 26:09: Juicy’s quest to avoid Hamlet’s ending
• 29:31: Breakdown of main characters, script’s own words
• 34:07–35:07: Trauma, masculinity, and its effects
• 55:13: Teedra justifying her marriage—use of religion
• 63:04: Chosen family vs. relatives
• 74:27–75:38: Adapting "to be or not to be": "It’s not to be or not to be. It’s how to be."
• 104:46: Larry & Juicy’s tender scene and closet dynamics
• 117:12–121:30: Tio’s gingerbread monologue: pleasure over harm
• 131:14–134:31: The play’s ending: escaping tragedy, choosing joy
• 137:50: Final stage directions—celebration of the feminine

The Ending: Escaping Tragedy & Choosing Joy

Summary:
The final act brings Fat Ham's central themes to a climax. Rev (the Claudius figure) dies—but not by murder. He chokes and refuses Juicy’s help to save his life due to homophobic pride. The classic Hamlet bloodbath is teased (with strobe effects and fight moments), but the characters choose not to kill each other. Instead, they break the cycle, refuse to perform tragedy, and dissolve into a queer, jubilant, drag-infused, celebratory finale—a "crack into a celebration of the feminine" [137:50].

"Why die now? Why die now? ... We choose life."

Critical Reflection & Final Thoughts

• Fat Ham is praised for subverting expectations, deftly blending humor and trauma, and using meta-theater to challenge who gets to tell which stories—and whose joy is worthy of recognition.
• Its specificity—a contemporary Southern Black family, with queer and female characters breaking cycles and finding self-acceptance—enables it to be both uniquely fresh and widely relatable.
• Both hosts hope for a wide afterlife for the play in colleges, small regionals, and beyond: "Remember, it ends with joy ... and it's funny as fuck." [152:03]

Other Notable Topics

• The challenges and politics of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony nominations
• The relationship between Fat Ham and other plays/musicals (Hamlet, Angels in America, Fire Island, Kinky Boots)
• Extended, foul-mouthed asides and as much gay theater gossip as you’d expect from this duo

Closing

Broadway diva sign-off:
By request, the episode closes with Elaine Stritch—because, as Jayson says, "it’s me, so ... Elaine Stritch."

For more, follow Matt (@tcoplik) and Jayson (Instagram: @jaysonlkerr).
Read and support the show at bwaybreakdown.substack.com.