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Monday, March 11, 2024
Review: ‘Fat Ham’ Turns Hamlet on Its Head at City Theatre
onStage Pittsburgh: “They staged a play, and a party broke out,” said a patron at City Theatre on March 8 at the Pittsburgh premiere of Fat Ham, the boisterous, in-your-face version of Hamlet – without the handwringing.
I’m so excited about Fat Ham. Hamlet is one of my favorite plays of all time, if not my favorite play of all time. To graduate high school I had to write a 50 page paper on any literary topic of my choosing. I wrote about adapting Shakespeare for a modern audience. I went into the essay thinking that The best way to adapt Shakespeare is to stay truthful to the original meaning of the text while adapting the way in which that meaning is presented to appeal to a modern audience. Fat Ham completely changed my thesis. It blew up my whole world. Fat Ham is in direct dialogue and is a direct criticism of Hamlet. I love that. It’s original and it’s new, unlike many adaptations. It expands on the message of Hamlet. All that is to say I am incredibly incredibly excited about Fat Ham. I’ve had its run in my calendar since we did the Pittsburgh Project in Susan’s class. I forget who did City Theater but I saw on their board a pamphlet for City Theater’s season which included the dates of Fat Ham. I immediately put them in my calendar and have been anticipating the run of Fat Ham since then.
I am seeing Fat Ham in a week, and I am incredibly excited for it. I heard murmurs about it from time to time but didn't really know much about it until I saw it was playing in Pittsburgh, so I decided to research it. It seems that the show is just hilarious and I think it will be a great experience. From what I've read, it seems like it keeps the vague outline of Hamlet, but does an incredibly modern adaptation that seems to highlight some of the ridiculousness of the original story. I had to read Hamlet in high school my freshman, junior, and senior years, so I have had more than enough of it, and I think that while it is a good show, many parts of it are just sort of meaningless. I am very excited to see an adaptation that is very aware of this fact and has a fun time while showing it.
2 comments:
I’m so excited about Fat Ham. Hamlet is one of my favorite plays of all time, if not my favorite play of all time. To graduate high school I had to write a 50 page paper on any literary topic of my choosing. I wrote about adapting Shakespeare for a modern audience. I went into the essay thinking that The best way to adapt Shakespeare is to stay truthful to the original meaning of the text while adapting the way in which that meaning is presented to appeal to a modern audience. Fat Ham completely changed my thesis. It blew up my whole world. Fat Ham is in direct dialogue and is a direct criticism of Hamlet. I love that. It’s original and it’s new, unlike many adaptations. It expands on the message of Hamlet. All that is to say I am incredibly incredibly excited about Fat Ham. I’ve had its run in my calendar since we did the Pittsburgh Project in Susan’s class. I forget who did City Theater but I saw on their board a pamphlet for City Theater’s season which included the dates of Fat Ham. I immediately put them in my calendar and have been anticipating the run of Fat Ham since then.
I am seeing Fat Ham in a week, and I am incredibly excited for it. I heard murmurs about it from time to time but didn't really know much about it until I saw it was playing in Pittsburgh, so I decided to research it. It seems that the show is just hilarious and I think it will be a great experience. From what I've read, it seems like it keeps the vague outline of Hamlet, but does an incredibly modern adaptation that seems to highlight some of the ridiculousness of the original story. I had to read Hamlet in high school my freshman, junior, and senior years, so I have had more than enough of it, and I think that while it is a good show, many parts of it are just sort of meaningless. I am very excited to see an adaptation that is very aware of this fact and has a fun time while showing it.
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