Tony Award-winning play Jaja’s African Hair Braiding is set to announce cast members for its upcoming national tour in the fall. The groundbreaking play will be staged at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre Jan 14-Feb 2. Visit chicagoshakes.com for more information.
Written by first-generation Ghanaian American playwright Jocelyn Bioh and directed by Obie Award-winning theater director Whitney White, the play offers a microcosmic view of life’s complexities and challenges through the eyes of ten Black immigrant women whose paths cross in the sometimes-turbulent confines of a Harlem hair salon that specializes in the intricate art of African hair braiding. The play is Bioh’s Broadway playwriting debut.
At the Tony’s, Dede Ayite shattered one of the award’s many glass ceilings by becoming the first Black Woman to win a Tony Award for Best Costume Design of a Play. She was also nominated in the same category for the play Appropriate, which won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play.
Ayite was also nominated for Best Costume Design of a Musical for Alicia Key’s Tony Award-winning musical Hell’s Kitchen.
In Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, the personal life stories of the main characters become as entangled and interwoven as the intricate hair designs, they create for their customers.
The eye-popping costumes are not the only miracle to behold. If you never knew what a “sew-in” is or a cornrow with zigzag parts or what a “jumbo box braid” is, you’ll get a first-hand tutorial courtesy of Jaja’s salon. Hair and wig designer Nikiya Mathis has the actors pull them together, as if by sleight of hand, while they verbally spar over the heads of their customers. It’s fascinating to watch.
After watching this play, it’s obvious that there should have been a Tony Award category for Best Hair design!
One of the running jokes in the play is an outlandish request from Chrissy (Kalyne Coleman), who asks Ndidi (Maechi Aharanwa) to construct a handfull of blond braids that sweep all the way down to the floor. “I want to look just like Beyonce!” Chrissy demands.
The stories of the salon worker’s struggles, hopes, dreams, and loves won and lost take on texture and dimension as the play careens over 90 intermission-less minutes to its climax.
Set over the course of a single sweltering-hot summer day in Harlem, playwright Bioh creates a vivid character study that is a portrait of immigrant life in America. It reflects the turbulent time we live in and its many contradictions.
“This play speaks to the heart of what it means to be both an American and a first-generation immigrant,” Bioh said of the play in a recent interview.
“There is a real universality in these women’s lived experience. They try so hard, without really knowing what to do or what direction to turn to. You can’t help but want to reach and connect with them and to fall in love with each of them.”
Most of the cast members in the Manhattan Theatre Club production are making their Broadway debut. The authenticity of their performances and their ability to meld as an ensemble is a marvel to behold.
Bioh’s play takes no prisoners. She is quick to address the deep-seated racism that underlies the nation’s policies toward immigrants.
She sets the play in the year 2019, the year after then-President Trump expressed his displeasure at having large numbers of immigrants from what he called “shithole countries” flooding into the United States.
With a sharp eye for character development and an uncanny ear for dialogue that often borders on music, Bioh creates scenes that are at once side-splittingly comic and thunderously tragic.
The two-faced tragic/comic mask has always been the visual mascot of the theatre. Bioh, in her cleverly crafted play, masterfully captures it’s ironic spirit in all its heady essence.
Even though her characters are sometimes at odds, even at war, with each other, they form a tight-knit bond as a shield to confront a society that considers them outsiders. Although pushed to the fringes of society, they struggle mightily to make America the place they call home.
Playwright Bioh proves herself a master at creating workplace comedy. She makes maximum use of the claustrophobic setting of a Harlem hair-braiding salon where order and chaos are often two sides of the same coin.
Watching the ensemble cast of ten weave in and out of each other with their conflicting personalities and convoluted story lines is like watching the Knicks and the Heat in a hotly contested playoff game.
When new customer Jennifer (Rachel Christopher) walks in the shop to get micro braids, it turns out to be a job that takes Miriam (Brittany Adebumola) s full twelve hours. This turns out to be precisely the timeframe over which the plot of “Jaja” unfolds.
The conflict between Bea (Zenzi Williams) and Aminata (Nana Mensah) to dominate the shop is a primary focus of the drama.
A running subtext is the precariousness and uncertainty that lurks in the background of each of the women’s lives.
Jaja’s 18-year-old daughter Marie (Dominique Thorne) is left in charge of the salon in her mother’s absence.
Jaja (Somi Kakoma) is off to City Hall to marry the white landlord of a nearby building in a sham wedding which she hopes will get her citizenship papers.
An odd assortment of street people and Harlem ne’er do wells pop In and out of Jaja’s salon. They provide a colorful glimpse of the street life that exists beyond the shop’s threshold.
There’s the Sock Man and the Jewelry Man (played variously by Michael Oloyede and Onye Eme-Akwari) selling largely unwanted, overpriced items of dubious origin.
Interwoven throughout are the stories of the dreams and aspirations of each of the contract workers that preside over the chairs in Jaja’s salon.
Marie (Morgan Scott) wants to be a writer, but Jaja, her mother, prefers that she become a doctor.
The stories of past marital failures are unraveled like the threads of a worn-out weave. Brittany Adebumola as Miriam unfolds a poignant narrative of her escape from an abusive marriage in her native Sierra Leone.
Besides Ayite’s vibrant costumes and Mathis’ Chihuly-like hair sculptures, David Zinn’s set brings the grit and graphic of the Harlem streets inside with his clever use of textured surfaces and colors. Vivid reds, yellows and pinks collide with uncharacteristic Barbie-pink walls.
A Senegalese Flag seems to bear silent witness to it all from a far corner wall. Its very presence speaks volumes in silence.
The complete title of Bioh’s play is “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding-A Celebration of Culture and Identity.
African hair braiding is more than just a popular style. It is an African tradition that goes back centuries. In ancient times, it defined one’s culture, tribe, religion and status in society. Its traditions are among many in current Black culture that survived the Middle Passage and took root centuries later in cities throughout America. Their seeds have flourished despite years of ignorance and oppression. This play and its subject matter are perfect examples of that fact.
Jaja’s Hair Braiding gives you a lot to think about long after the curtain falls. I hope you have an opportunity to experience the richness of its message when it comes to Chicago Shakespeare Theatre in 2025. Visit chicagoshakes.com for more.
This was first reviewed October 3, 2023, at the Opening Night-World Premiere in the Manhattan Theatre Club Samuel J Friedman Theatre.
