(upbeat music) - Duane, I'm gonna start with you.

You are playing Hamlet in this play, in a way, right?

A little bit of a twist on it, but talk about, it's one of my favorite plays, "Hamlet" is, and it's one of my favorite roles.

I think it's such a tortured and complicated role, talk about bringing that to Detroit in the wraparound of "Fat Ham," which is a little different than the Shakespeare version.

- Yeah.

It's exciting, it's exciting.

Like the fact that it is Shakespeare, I actually like when people bring that up because it's very much still in the vein of Shakespeare, still "Hamlet" in the essence of it.

Like the language isn't Shakespearean, but it's Shakespearean-esque given the fact that the history of Shakespeare is that this language was mostly used.

The language that Shakespeare wrote in was mainly language that was used amongst the commoners or the poor folk.

I feel like James Ijames does the same thing with his take on this version.

It's a mirror of the past in how we speak today.

And I feel like from an actor perspective and very much him, you have to keep that in mind, the fact that it is the Shakespearean piece.

So although it is a comedy, the needs and the wants of these characters are very desperate.

And every character in this play have something that they're hiding, that they're desperately fighting to not reveal.

And it's exciting to bring this piece to Detroit especially because I feel like this story that's being told by James Ijames, this story that he created is, it's not common that you see this kind of Black story told.

This isn't the stereotypical story that you normally see that's about a guy who's just different than his environment.

The people that he was raised around, he's more of an intellectual versus being a brute.

And I feel like he's a weirdo, he likes different things, and I feel like it's very important to tell these kind of stories to show that Black people are not a monolith.

We can be wearing diversity.

And also as a actor, I just like the challenge of playing someone that's outside of myself, but also connected to me in a lot of ways in my childhood.

- Well, I mean it's so important for Black people in particular to see ourselves on stage.

And so most of the the plays that we see with Detroit Public Theater are from Black playwrights.

And so this story, just to have a character like Juicy on stage and really be exploring things within himself, is just a really incredible thing to be able to show to audiences.

And we don't know who we touch, right?

Yeah.

You don't know who is seeing that story and seeing them themselves on stage.