By James ljames
Original New York direction Saheem Ali
Director Sideeq Heard
Set design Maruti Evans
Costume design Dominiqie Fawn Hill
Royal Shakespeare Company
Swan Theatre
Stratford on Avon
29th August 2025 19.30
CAST
Opal- Jasmine Elcock
Rabby- Sandra Marvin
Larry- Corey Montague-Shaley
Juicy – Olisa Odele
Tedra – Andi Osho
Rev /Pap – Sule Rimi
Tio – Kieran Taylor Ford
FROM THE PLAY TEXT
Juicy- a kind of Hamlet
Tedra – a kind of Gertrude
Rev – a kind of Claudius, same actor as Pap, a kind of Hamlet’s father
Opal – a kind of Ophelia
Larry – a kind of Laertes
Rabby- Opal and Larry’s mother, a kind of Polonius
Tio – a kind of Horatio
It won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2022. The RSC production has a mainly British cast, and the setting is a house in North Carolina. The writer notes it could be Virginia, Maryland or Tennessee, but it is not Mississippi, Alabama or Florida, James IJames is from Mississippi, and what he is saying is “south, but not Deep South.’ I don’t see how Florida fits. The furthest South but atypical of the Deep South.
The detail of the set is incredible, right down to the outside wiring on the house, something I always notice in America, along with the outside air conditioning unit. We can see an illusory corridor, as well as into the kitchen. The set has all sorts of party stuff- Valentines Day, Christmas, Birthdays. The projected trees can turn to bright red. Lighting is excellent.
From the RSC page:
Juicy is a queer, Southern college kid, already grappling with some serious questions of identity, when the ghost of his father shows up in their backyard, demanding that Juicy avenge his murder. The story is familiar, but what’s different is Juicy himself, a sensitive and self-aware young Black man trying to break the cycles of trauma and violence in service of his own liberation. From an uproarious family barbecue emerges a compelling examination of love and loss, pain and joy.
This is the year of Hamlet, with the RSC doing Hamlet plus Hamlet: Hail to The Thief, and now this third one (which is an extreme riff on the tale). Chichester’s doing it. The National’s doing it.
We get a couple of spotlit soliloquies from Hamlet, plus odd lines. I loved the line where Rev is starting the barbecue, and Juicy picks up a jar and says, ‘There’s the rub.’ Yorik gets referenced as an old friend who O’D’d. Juicy admits to quoting Shakespeare to the horror of all.
Every character shifts. Juicy is dressed in mourning black, and has a long scene with a smoking Pap- smoking as in smoke is coming out of his clothes. Pap was a murderous, violent man, imprisoned for murder, and stabbed to death. Juicy is proudly ‘a soft man.’
Juicy is played by Olisa Odele, almost reprising his role as Isom in The Hot Wing King at The National in 2024. That was also about African Americans and cooking and peppered with the N-word. Odele may be cornering the market in flamboyantly gay African-Americans who cook and call each other N-word. Trained in Guildford. Perfect American accent.
Tedra (Andi Osho) is gloriously outrageously sexy, with costume to march, and Rev (Sule Rimi) her husband’s brother who she is marrying is macho man, both are strongly heterosexual. These are large, large performances and all the better for. He’s called Rev and does an elaborate Grace but is the King of Pork- he runs a pork restaurant where he is the cook.
Juicy’s pal Tio (Kieran Taylor Ford) is a stoner addicted to watching porn on his phone.
Later Tio has an hilarious long speech about having sex with a gingerbread man in a virtual reality programme while heavily stoned, and concluding that OK, sex is sex no matter who it’s with.
Opal (Jasmine Elcock) is Juicy’s friend from childhood, forced into a dress by her mum. But she likes to wear pants and she likes girls, so bonds with Juicy. They are both gay, even if ythe parents fondly think of them as boyfriend and girlfriend. For a “kind of Ophelia” she is highly assertive. She is small, very slight, looks young but completely fills the stage with personality.
Larry(Corey Montague-Shaley) is a marine with post traumatic stress disorder, and is remote, blank at first, and then admits he is attracted to Juicy, and eventually admits he wants to be an entertainer, and closes the show in drag and glitter.
Rabby (Sandra Marvin) is a hymn singing testifying mom, who later owns up to having been a stripper. Yet another major stage dominating woman, along with Tedra and Opal.
The equivalent to the players scene follows on from an amazing karaoke sequence, and is changed into a game of charades. Tedra steals the show with a flat out song, followed by Juicy with dark depressive song. I loved watching Rabby, who is so desperate to get up and sing, so dismissive of those who do. Then Juicy gets to do a charade, with a book title, and Rev does the due Claudius stalking off in fury.
Music features strongly and full marks to the RSC for (at last) referencing and listing the tracks in the programme with detailed composing, publishing and cover version notes. This is how it should be, and it’s important.
There are moments of confrontation. See above. There is also a genuinely moving ending with Juicy and Larry.
I don’t think it right to plot spoil. There is a sudden violent Larry / Juicy moment, and it all ends so differently to the original. I will say that Rev’s end is one of the funniest all action scenes I have seen in years. They do reference some aspects of Hamlet strongly, such as the mother / son scene.
They even try to emulate the original Hamlet ending with everyone dying, and give up.
They all look at the audience.
JUICY: You know what they think about to happen, right?
TEDRA: No, what?
JUICY: I mean … All of us are supposed to die.
………………
TEDRA: Who says we gotta die?
JUICY: It’s how these things end … We could try it.
TIO: Try what?
JUICY: Killing each other.
They all go frantic and try it.
They close on a song from a transformed Larry and dance.It is joyous, very funny, flat out acting, first date set, even better lighting, some great tricks of theatre, without plot spoilers. It’s a straight 90 minutes with no interval. It flew by.
No doubts. Five star.
*****
WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
5 star
Sarah Hemmings, Financial Times *****
Simon Tavener, The Reviews Hub *****
Daz Gale All That Dazzles *****
4 star
David Jays, The Guardian ****
The Stage ****
The Times ****
Daily Mail ****
Kat Mokrynski, Broadway World ****
Philip Gooden, Stage Talk ****
West End Best Friend ****
Theatre & Tonic ****
3 star
Fiona Mountford, The Telegraph ***
Michael Davies, What’s On Stage ***
LINKS
HAMLET
Hamlet – NT 2010 Rory Kinnear as Hamlet
Hamlet- Young Vic 2011 Michael Sheen as Hamlet
Hamlet RSC 2013 Jonathan Slinger as Hamlet
Hamlet – Globe 2014
Hamlet – Maxine Peake, NT Live Broadcast from Manchester Royal Exchange
Hamlet- Benedict Cumberbatch, 2015, Barbican, London
Hamlet, RSC 2016 Paapa Essiedu as Hamlet, Stratford
Hamlet, Almeida 2017, BBC 2018, Andrew Scott as Hamlet
Hamlet, RSC 2025, Luke Thallon as Hamlet
Hamlet: Hail To The Thief, RSC 2025, Samuel Blenkin as Hamlet
Hamlet, Chichester 2025 Giles Terera as Hamlet
+
Fat Ham, by James IJames, RSC 2025
OLIDA ODELE
The Hot Wing King by Katori Hall. National Theatre, 2024
SULE RIMI
Blues For An Alabama Sky, National Theatre 2022
Jitney by August Wilson, Bath 2022
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