Marcel Spears doesn’t just make a spectacular Broadway debut — he does it the hard way, by being subtle and tenderly nuanced in his portrayal of Juicy, the haunted (literally) hero of James Ijames’ wonderful new comedy, “Fat Ham.” After winning last year’s Pulitzer Prize for drama for its run at the Public Theater, “Fat Ham” opened Wednesday on Broadway at the American Airlines Theatre.
The “Ham” of the title refers to the Bard’s “Hamlet,” and one of the many pleasures of Ijames’ play is seeing how ingeniously this playwright has transferred and updated that classic to the present day via a backyard barbeque hosted by a dysfunctional Black family somewhere in North Carolina.