Huntington Theater Company's "Fat Ham" turns Hamlet "on its head"
BOSTON - What happens when you take Shakespeare's "Hamlet" and set it in modern day North Carolina with an African-American family at the center of the story?
The Huntington Theater Company's production of the five-time Tony nominated "Fat Ham" is a loose adaptation of the tale. Instead of a Danish castle, the action takes place at a backyard barbecue.
While Hamlet may be a tragedy, associate director Dawn M. Simmons said Fat Ham is all about laughter.
"It takes that story (and) turns it on its head, doesn't take it too seriously, so that you can actually dig into that angst, that existential dread," she told WBZ-TV.
The play still features a murder, a marriage and a ghost, but in today's language.
"I think that the language of Shakespeare can be daunting and intimidating," Boston native and actor Thomika Marie Bridwell told WBZ. "It's hard to understand and then when you couple that with, 'How does that relate to me in the here and now?"
"If I had seen something like this growing up, then that would have piqued my interest because this makes sense to me," said actor Ebony Marshall-Oliver
The tale may be centuries old, Simmons says it still resonates now.
"Once you start to dive in, you find those universal, you find those relatable, you find the core of the story that you're like, 'We're still wrestling with today," she said.
You can see the Pulitzer Prize-winning Fat Ham at the Calderwood Pavilion in the South End through Oct. 29.
