In May of this year, James Ijames won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Fat Ham, a bawdy, Black, funny, and unabashedly queer adaptation (of sorts) of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Set on a North Carolina pig farm, the play closely follows the beats of the famous tragedy but remixes them into a meditation on masculinity, sexuality, mourning, and joy. Juicy, the play's protagonist and Hamlet stand-in, is a fat Black queer boy who has just seen the ghost of his father, Pap. Pap has returned to earth for revenge: He claims that his brother, Juicy's uncle Rev, murdered him in order to marry his wife, Tedra, and visits Juicy on the afternoon of a cookout celebrating their union to demand Juicy kill Rev. Early in the play, Juicy turns to the audience and soliloquies, "Fathers and sons. That shit can get dark. / You know. / When the chemistry ain't right. When the father / Is too heavy and the son is too light. / When the father thinks the son is too light / When the son is too heavy. / That fucks shit up." It's a virtuoso moment that announces Ijames as not only a major talent but also, rarest of things, a writer who surprises his audience.
This story is from the August 2022 edition of Harper's BAZAAR - US.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the August 2022 edition of Harper's BAZAAR - US.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Musicians RHIANNON GIDDENS and BRITTNEY SPENCER on COUNTRY music's BLACK HISTORY and why the genre is at a TURNING POINT
Country music's popularity is at an all-time high in America, with the genre boasting a more diverse audience base than ever before.
BEAUTY
THE BEACH, BOTTLED
TRIBUTE
FAITH RINGGOLD'S ART of LIBERATION
I Love MESS!
In praise of DESIGN that more HONESTLY REFLECTS our COMPLICATED, CHAOTIC, VERY REAL LIVES
My FATHER the SUPERHERO
DASHA NAVALNAYA, the daughter of the late POLITICAL ACTIVIST ALEXEY NAVALNY, on how he dedicated his LIFE to ENDING INJUSTICE in his native RUSSIA—and still always made TIME for HER
BREAKING New GROUND
A DANCE forged at the dawn of HIP-HOP will make its debut this summer at the 2024 OLYMPICS in PARIS. As TEAM USA dancers SUNNY CHOI and VICTOR MONTALVO prepare to take the Games by storm, BREAKING'S PIONEERS recall who and what brought them to this MOMENT.
A LEAGUE of THEIR OWN
EMMA CORRIN, breakout STAR of The Crown, is Marvel’s newest SUPERVILLAIN. But they are SO MUCH MORE than Deadpool’s latest adversary. They are utterly, completely THEMSELVES.
Main SQUEEZE
CINCHED WAISTS are all over the runways, but the silhouette is less about cutting an HOURGLASS FIGURE (and appealing to the male gaze) than FEELING a sense of POWER and CONTROL
The DYSON Dynasty
How a British VACUUM CLEANER company has almost single-handedly TRANSFORMED the way we DRY our HAIR and become one of the BIGGEST, HOTTEST LUXURY BRANDS in beauty
WONDER Years
For four decades, MARC JACOBS has made fashion that is PERSONAL, URGENT, and ERA-DEFINING. \"Once I knew what I LOVED,\" he says, \"I just COULDN'T GET ENOUGH of IT.\"