For hundreds of years, William Shakespeare’s plays have been performed, interpreted, and re-interpreted for audiences of all sorts. And this spring, members of the Creative Capital are taking on the mantle of keeping Shakespeare’s work alive, as both The Tempest and Hamlet are featured on various Providence stages.
Hamlet at The Gamm(let)
Starting with the most traditional staging, The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre closes its fortieth anniversary season with a captivating new production of Hamlet.
Here’s the story in case it’s been awhile: Prince Hamlet of Denmark seeks to avenge his father’s murder. When the ghost of King Hamlet reveals that he was killed by his brother Claudius—now king and married to Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude—Hamlet is thrust into a spiral of grief, doubt, and moral conflict. Feigning madness to uncover the truth, Hamlet alienates allies, loses his love, Ophelia, and causes the death of her father, Polonius. Claudius plots to have Hamlet killed, but Hamlet returns to Denmark, leading to a deadly final duel. In the end, nearly all major characters die, including Hamlet, who kills Claudius before dying, himself. The play explores themes of revenge, mortality, betrayal, and the complexity of human thought.
The Gamm’s artistic director Tony Estrella directs an exhilarating staging of this famous tale of murder and revenge with Jeff Church as the play’s titular role. Tha play also features Jeanine Kane as Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude; Kelby Akin, as his uncle turned stepfather, King Claudius; and Nora Eschenheimer as Ophelia. Together, it’s a company of seasoned artists plumbing the depths of the human condition through Shakespeare’s transcendent words. The exciting aspect of this production is the elaborate staging built to provide dynamic movement for the actors, with hiding places, special lighting effects, and fog machines creating an atmosphere invoking the ghostly aspects of this spectacular piece.
Wilbury Theatre Group’s production of Fat Ham, Serves Up Shakespeare with Southern Spice and Radical Heart
What if Hamlet didn’t end in bloodshed? What if the ghost of a murdered father whispered not “avenge me,” but instead sparked a reckoning with toxic masculinity, family trauma, and the radical act of choosing joy?
In Fat Ham, James Ijames answers that question with a bold, laugh-out-loud, soul-stirring reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, trading Elsinore’s cold stone halls for the smoke and sizzle of a Southern backyard BBQ—and tragedy for transformation.
Both Hamlet and Fat Ham begin with the same haunting call to arms: the ghost of a murdered father demands revenge. In Hamlet, the command propels the titular prince down a spiraling path of hesitation, madness, and bloodshed. In Fat Ham, Juicy—a young, queer, Black man—hears the same demand from his father Pap, but rather than surrendering to it, he interrogates it. His resistance becomes the emotional and philosophical heartbeat of Ijames’ script.
The parallels are striking and deliberate. Juicy is Hamlet, played by Dana Reid; meanwhile, his flamboyant, love-starved mother Tedra stands in for Gertrude, played by Maria Albertini; his hyper-masculine uncle Rev, played by Jermaine L. Pearson, channels Claudius. We also meet Opal (a riff on Ophelia) played by Autumn Mist Jefferson, Larry (Laertes) played by Mamadou Toure, and Tio (a lovable reimagining of Horatio) played by Jeff Ararat. The core relationships mirror their Shakespearean origins, with the added complexities and intersections of race, queerness, and Southern familial tensions simmering just beneath the surface.
But while Shakespeare’s Hamlet delves into themes of mortality, madness, and revenge with solemnity and grandeur, Fat Ham swings a different bat entirely. It’s a dark comedy—and a brilliant one at that—punctuated by karaoke, fried food, drag, and laughter. And yet, it never shies away from the weightier questions: What does it mean to be a man? What is the cost of survival in a world that expects you to be hard when all you want is softness? Where Hamlet wrestled with “to be or not to be,” Juicy wrestles with the even harder choice—to become or not to become the version of himself his world demands.
Ijames’ use of meta-theatricality* is pitch-perfect. As in Hamlet, there’s a play-within-a-play—though here it’s disguised as a game of charades, revealing far more than innocent fun. Juicy addresses the audience directly, sometimes quoting Shakespeare verbatim, like “What a piece of work is man,” only to undercut it with a weary, knowing glance. These moments remind us that he’s living a version of a script written for someone else—until he decides to rewrite it.
What most distinguishes Fat Ham from its source material is its radical optimism. Where Hamlet is trapped in cycles of violence and despair, Juicy confronts and dismantles them. Where Elsinore ends in death, Fat Ham ends in dance—literally. The final moments break the fourth wall in a joyful act of reclamation: of story, of body, of future.
The themes of identity and self-definition resound throughout. Juicy’s queerness isn’t incidental—it’s essential. His refusal to perform traditional masculinity and his refusal to avenge his father in a way that would destroy him reflect Ijames’ larger project: disrupting old narratives and creating space for softness, for healing, for queer Black joy.
If Shakespeare gave us a cautionary tale about the futility of revenge, Ijames gives us a healing balm—and it still stings in all the right places.
A revelatory reimagining of Hamlet that is as hilarious as it is profound. Fat Ham doesn’t just retell a classic—it rewrites its destiny, and in doing so, invites us all to break our own inherited scripts.
La Tempestad | The Tempest — A Storm of Magic, Language, and Transformation
Trinitiy Rep is presenting an innovative production of The Tempest aka La Tempestad. This is a dual-language version of Shakespeare’s The Tempest which explores themes of forgiveness, power, and the supernatural. It follows Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, who uses his magical powers to create a storm that shipwrecks his usurping brother, Antonio, and other nobles on a remote island. With his daughter Miranda, and the spirit, Ariel, Prospero seeks justice while dealing with Caliban, a monster of a man who lives on the island. The operative word for this production is “magical.” Ancient, mysterious, alchemical magic—the kind that stirs the heart and lingers in the imagination.
The set, costumes, sound effects, and lighting combine with elements that emphasize magical powers to transform people and places, providing an evening of extra special charm to behold.
Magic is also served up in the bilingual brilliance of this production. With lines delivered in both English and Spanish, and dynamic subtitles projected above the stage, the play opens itself to new rhythms and resonances. This dual-language approach doesn’t divide the experience—it deepens it, layering the already poetic language with cultural richness and immediacy.
Whether you know The Tempest well or are encountering it for the first time, this production invites you to get lost in the storm—and perhaps find a bit of yourself on the shore.
Get in on the Shakespearean Fun at Barker Playhouse
Lastly, two Tuesdays a month, The Players at Barker Playhouse feature Strictly Shakespeare, an opportunity for people to read Shakespeare’s plays out loud. This month, they are reading The Comedy of Errors. The second installment of the month will be on April 15 at 7:00 pm.
*Meta-theatricality refers to moments in a play when the work draws attention to itself as a theatrical production—when the play acknowledges that it is a play. It’s a form of self-awareness that often breaks the illusion of realism to engage the audience more directly or to comment on the nature of performance, storytelling, or identity. Meta-theatricality deepens the audience’s engagement by making them aware of the mechanics of performance. It invites us to think not just about the story, but about how stories are told, who gets to tell them, and why.
For example, In Hamlet, the “Mousetrap” play performed to catch the king’s conscience is metatheatrical—a play within the play that reflects and reveals the outer narrative.
In Fat Ham, Juicy speaks directly to the audience, quotes Shakespeare, and reflects on being “cast” into someone else’s narrative—all clear uses of meta-theatricality.
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Fat Ham
March 27 – April 13
Wilbury Theatre Group
475 Valley St, PVD
La Tempestad — The Tempest
March 27 – April 27
Trinity Repertory Theatre
201 Washington St, PVD
Hamlet
April 2 – 27
The Gamm Theatre
1245 Jefferson Blvd, Warwick
Strictly Shakespeare
Twice monthly
The Barker Playhouse
400 Benefit Street, PVD
Judith Clinton is a playwright, screenwriter, and theatre producer, with a rich background in dramatic arts. Judith, along with Cat Collyer, is Co-Executive Director of the Rhode Island Theatre Makers, an organization that meets once a month to bring Theatre Makers together to find and create new opportunities for Rhode Island Theatre Makers.
