Instead of princely, dithering Hamlet, Ijames gives us cash-strapped, indecisive Juicy (Marcel Spears), whose murdered father, Pap (Billy Eugene Jones), was a barbecue pitmaster, a bad dad, and a capricious killer. Other flat surfaces, like a checked tablecloth on a folding table, sometimes hide eerie mysteries, so there might be more behind that paper-printed kitchen - say, some force capable of tearing through the domestic scene. Beyond a sliding glass door, the interior of the house is obviously a blown-up photograph, a two-dimensional image. Set designer Maruti Evans hints that there’s something uncanny going on there, despite the cheery balloons and bright green lawn. His Hamlet-manqué could be anywhere in North Carolina, says the script, or Tennessee. So what is the feeling of the as-yet-unmade choice - fear, exhilaration, or delay? For Ijames it’s the melting lassitude of a summer backyard get-together, somewhere in which the heat is serious. To like Fat Ham or not to like Fat Ham? Days later, that is still my question. After seeing the Pulitzer Prize–winning Fat Ham, I have been lost in my own version of that long indecision, teetering between disappointment and pleasure. They each deal with a man as he examines and extends a moment of doubt - the hero needs to take action, but he doesn’t know what that action should be. But equivocation does make up the texture of both plays. At least … I mean … that’s sort of true? Appropriately enough, I’m not confident that I’m right about either of those premises: Ijames’s comedy at the Public Theater is more about alleviating generational anguish than it is about Shakespeare, for instance. James Ijames’s Fat Ham is a play about Hamlet, and Hamlet is a play about ambivalence therefore Fat Ham is a play about ambivalence.