‘Fat Ham’ Broadway review: Backyard BBQ ‘Hamlet’ needs more meat
nypost.comthat is the question.Running time: 1 hour and 45 minutes with no intermission. At the American Airlines Theatre, 227 W. 42nd Street.Playwright James Ijames’ “Fat Ham,” which opened Wednesday night on Broadway, thinks so.
More characters come out of the closet — or get high — in this zany spin on the tragedy than violently perish. The play contorts “Hamlet” into a broad dysfunctional family comedy, as it moves the usually anguished action to a lively backyard BBQ somewhere down south.
Done with Denmark, now something’s rotten in the state of North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland or Tennessee — we’re not sure which.That is a fine, if not groundbreaking, idea.
Shakespeare’s plays are adapted and relocated all the time — the 1999 movie “10 Things I Hate About You” is based on “The Taming of the Shrew,” while “The Lion King” is “Hamlet” with hyenas.
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