Devin A. Cunningham and Ron Chapman Photo by Jessica Palopoli

Fat Ham takes place over the course of an afternoon barbecue, ostensibly to celebrate the marriage of Tedra (Jenn Stephens) and Rev (Ron Chapman), who have tied the knot just a week after Rev's brother Pap (also played by Chapman as a ghost outfitted in a white tuxedo) was killed in prison. True to the source material, the ghost of Pap tasks his son, Juicy (Devin A. Cunningham), with revenge, instructing him to "gut" Rev like the pigs Pap used to butcher for the family's barbecue restaurant.

Juicy, however, is a far more delicate soul, much to the chagrin of both his father and uncle. "The men in our family ain't soft!," Rev scolds him. Despite having plenty of motive to fulfill his father's dark wish–not only the hasty remarriage of his mother, but also the fact that Rev and Tedra have plundered his college tuition money to remodel their bathroom–Juicy is too morose and too gentle to accede to this request.

Dressed in black shorts and a black t-shirt (until Rev harangues him into changing into something more festive, which he complies with by changing into a different black t-shirt adorned with sparkling lettering that reads "Momma's Boy" and tying a silky, patterned scarf around his neck), Juicy mopes through the preparations for the party, aided by his friend Tio (Jordan Covington), who gets the heartache Juicy feels: "Your Pop went to jail, his Pop went to jail, his Pop went to jail, his Pop went to jail and what's before that? Slavery. You carryin' your whole family's trauma."

Soon enough, the party gets started with the appearance of family friend Rabby (Phaedra Tillery-Boughton), who appears in a hot pink skirted suit and wearing an enormous pink hat truly worthy of being called a crown. The scold of the group, she also carries a fan with "Don't Try Me" on one side and "Try Jesus" on the other. With Rabby is her daughter Opal (Courtney Gabrielle Williams), who has also been forced into wearing a pink frock with a lace collar, though she keeps her basketball shorts on underneath. Their parents may have had high hopes for a marriage between Opal and Juicy, but it's clear from how femme Juicy is and how butch Opal is that this is never, ever going to happen.

In addition to the overall theme and plot points of Hamlet, playwright Ijames occasionally includes some lines taken directly from the original. But the most brilliant parallels come when the original's "the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king" becomes a game of charades, and the "to be or not to be" soliloquy is represented here when Juicy performs a karaoke version of Radiohead's "Creep": "I'm a creep. I'm a weirdo. What the hell am I doing here? I don't belong here."

The cast–expertly directed by Margo Hall–take Ijames' words and weave them into a seamless tapestry of anger and desire and sadness and longing that still somehow shimmers with humor that had the opening night audience roaring and leaping to their feet at show's end. Cunningham imbues Juicy with a perfect blend of depression and hopefulness that made me want to jump on the stage to give him a hug. (Which, fortunately he receives–from a very unexpected source.) His Juicy is clearly gay, but Cunningham doesn't play him as the "girly ass puddle of spit" that Rev calls him. His comfort with his desire is illustrated in the smallest of gestures, including a lovely moment when he delicately strokes the silk scarf tied in a bow around his neck.

Ron Chapman is appropriately menacing both as the ghost of Pap and the violent, cold-hearted Rev, wearing a sneer almost like a suit of armor. Jenn Stephen's Tedra is delightfully plastic, swinging easily from giddy to maternal in a trice. Williams is perfection as Opal (the stand-in for Shakespeare's Ophelia). Though her character arc does not end in madness, her brilliant physicality in defying her mother's expectations of femininity is only one of many delights in the play.

But my vote for scene-stealer has to go to Jordan Covington as Tio, Juicy's best friend, a stoner who expounds on a variety of topics, most having to do, in one form or another, with sex, including his virtual reality fantasy of receiving fellatio from a gingerbread man. (Though he's clear he prefers "gingerbread ladies.")

And though the transformation of Opal's brother Larry (Samuel Ademola) seems a bit too facile given the short time frame in which the play takes place, we are nonetheless touched by his struggle, and shocked at just how far his transformation from military man to its polar opposite goes.

You don't need to have seen Hamlet to enjoy Fat Ham (though it helps), but you do need to see this production if you a hungry for deep laughs and wondrous humanity.

Fat Ham runs through April 19, 2025, at San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post Street, San Francisco CA. Performances are Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7:00pm, Wednesdays at 2:00pm and 7:00pm, Fridays at 8:00pm, Saturdays at 3:00pm and 8:00pm, and Sundays at 2:00pm. Tickets are $35-$135. For tickets and information, please visit www.sfplayhouse.org or call the box office at 415-677-9596.