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“I am Fatboy and I am king”, well he’s not actually king at the beginning, but he believes he is. Fatboy is a vulgar character, part mobster, part vaudeville, part John Waters, all abhorrently hilarious. Fatboy lives with his wife Fudgie in a ramshackle cabin. They have no money, they love to hate each other, and they are both donned in horribly campy fat suits. She accuses him of eating everything in sight, and he, her of sleeping with anything that moves. Fudgie’s insatiable appetite for sex, Fatboy has an insatiable appetite for food, and they both have an insatiable appetite for money and power.

Adam Gertler and Katharine Clark Gray play Fatboy and Fudgie respectively with convincing hilarity. Such loutish characters and vulgar dialogue have the potential to be too much for the audience. However, Fatboy and Fudgie are compelling and engage the audience in the hilarity of their raucous behavior. Even as Fatboy tells of his killing spree, in which he killed a pretty little curtsying girl after killing her father, the audience is compelled to laugh.

The second act opens with Fatboy and Fudgie addressing the audience and thanking the writer, John Clancy for making it possible to have their lives recreated on stage. Fatboy is on trial for his murders, but the judge, who only wants for everyone to have a drink, is easily persuaded by Fatboy’s uncouth charm and Fudgie’s sexual talents. There is an hilarious musical break in this scene that is a good old fashioned hoe-down, only there’s rapping. So Fatboy gets off scott free and declares, “ask not what you can do for Fatboy, but what Fatboy wants for lunch, you f—ers!” And he will continue to refer to the audience and everybody else as such.

The final act finds Fatboy reigning as king, and taking great joy in making his slave, kiss his ass. The slave, played by Keith Conallen, who also has other roles throughout, is obviously tired of catering to his loathsome master. He has to give Fatboy the bad news that he has eaten all the pancakes in the word, along with all the cows.. and all the pigs. The slave is ridiculously dressed as a genie, meanwhile delivering deadpan lines in amusing contradiction. Fatboy is of course horrified by the news of the extinction his gluttony has created and decides that everything must die so that no living thing will ever again speak his name in association with the horrors for which he is at fault. Fudgie however, has other plans. And as she said in the beginning, she is the brains behind this outfit. She has arranged an assassination of Fatboy and more hilarity and campy fights ensue. Alas, as we find out in the end.

Fatboy can never die. He lives on in our neighbors; in all of us… despite the fact that we may be astonished at the sight of it’s vileness! Vile and astonishing as it may be, Brat Productions has created an hilariously vulgar and campy comedy that is neither for children nor ears offended by profanities. But anyone who can appreciate the comedy of vulgar exaggeration is encouraged to go and enjoy.

Runs through Saturday, 9/15 at Johnny Brenda’s and Plays and Players

Johnny Brenda’s
1201 N. Frankford Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19125

Plays & Players
1714 Delancey St, Philadelphia, PA 19103
(215) 735-0630
Plays and Players official website