2/11/2025 Preview: JAJA’S AFRICAN HAIR BRAIDING Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre
STEEL ORCHIDS
If I were a lazy man (and I am often accused of being one), I would dismiss Jaja’s African Hair Braiding as a Harlem transplant of Steel Magnolias. After all, it is driven by a group of women working on hair, treading on each other’s nerves and kvetching about the men in their lives. There is even a mother-daughter dynamic driving its plot. But that would be facile and a little… well, wrong.
Yes, the superficial resemblances to Robert Harling’s play give this script a veneer of recognition for non-Harlem audiences who may find the concept of elaborate hair braiding a bit too alien. This recognition allows us to warm to the characters’ eccentricities, to smile at their comraderies and rivalries, to cheer their victories, and to be moved by their risks and dangers.
Only here, the “enemy” isn’t diabetes and (slightly) flawed partners, it is cruel partners and I.C.E. agents. Most of the characters are African immigrants of various legal status who just want to live their lives and braid their customers’ hair.
It is 2019, a hot July in Jaja’s African Hair Braiding Salon on 125th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem, New York City (interestingly enough, a mere 22-minute walk from my daughter’s apartment). Jaja (Senegalese) herself is missing, off marrying her (sketchy) landlord, hoping to get her Green Card. Running the shop is Jaja’s daughter, Marie, who, at 18, shows an impressive grasp of adulthood and managerial skill. Employees at the shop include Bea (Ghanian), Miriam (Sierra
Leonean), Aminata (also Senegalese), and Ndidi(Nigerian). They perform their magic on seven patrons (played by four actresses) showing a wide range of age and attitude and dialect and origin. Among them is Jennifer, a black American journalist getting her hair braided for the first time, who spends the entire day in the chair. (The action of the play is confined to that single sweltering day.) Four men also intrude upon the sanctity of the shop (ALL played by one actor), again, of various attitudes and origins and dialects.
One of the joys of reading this script is “hearing” the various accents from the characters. Ms. Bioh is very skilled at “transliterating” how a character pronounces common words, how their syntax reflects their ethnic origin. This skill was also evident in her adaptation of Shakespeare’s Merry Wives, which came to life in the PBS broadcast of the 2021 Central Park production of that remarkable piece.
Another departure from Steel Magnolias is that these workers, though loyal and dedicated to Jaja and Marie, don’t especially like each other. The younger ones are seen as intruders, and the older ones come across as jealous and conniving. Ms. Bioh uses these conflicts as mere “color” – when “push comes to shove” they will support each other, against both Federal Agents and against obnoxiously rude patrons.
Although this play is set during the first DJT administration, it is made even more relevant by his (and his current administration’s) rampant scapegoating (and deportation) of all immigrants, legal or not, especially their plans to build a concentration camp on Gitmo to house them, perhaps forever. To be blunt, these characters braided their way into my heart, making them come alive off the page, utterly annihilating any remaining unconscious anti-immigrant prejudice that may linger in my mind. This is an extraordinarily well-written play, compelling and moving, filled with humor and character and the music of dialogue spoken in half-a-dozen accents.
This is the second play by Jocelyn Bioh to reach the stages of Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre, after 2020’s School Girls, or The African Mean Girls Play, another example of purposefully creating a facile connection to an iconic pop favorite. I remember adoring that production (one of the last I saw before the COVID shut-down), so I have every confidence that the True Colors team will bring to Jaja’s African Hair Braiding equal enthusiasm, professionalism, skill, and excellence. I only wish I could be there!
For the record, as superficial as the comparison to Steel Magnolias is, I am certain it was intentional. Is there a flower as relevant to Harlem as the magnolia is to the south? Sure, there is the old “There is a rose in Spanish Harlem,” but, for my title here, I chose a dive into Lucille Gaines, a Harlem florist from the 1940’s, who had an iconic portrait made of herself wearing a “crown” of 200 orchids. Ms. Gaines married into the florist business, but was soon running it herself, and was incredibly successful, but, more relevantly, was active with the mid-century NAACP and spoke up for Black Pullman Workers during their labor actions. So, I see Jaja and Maria as her heirs, Steel Orchids, as it were, keepers of blended African traditions that will, if allowed to continue, lead to a new immigrant culture that is alive and vital as any other in America. As EVERY other in America.
Here is the cast and creatives for Jocelyn Bioh’s Jaja’s African Hair Braiding at Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre:
Aba Arthur JAJA
Asha Basha Duniani MARIE
Zora Umeadi BEA
Adetinpo Thomas MIRIAM
Shakirah Demesier* AMINATA
Ernaisja Curry* NDIDI
Veanna Black* JENNIFER
Paris Cymone* VANESSA, RADIA, SHELIA
Marita A. McKee* MICHELLE, CHRISSY, LANIECE
Dane Troy * JAMES, SOCK MAN, JEWELRY MAN, DVD MAN
Ibi Owolabi Director
Tyshawn Gooden Assistant Director
Kayla Parker Assistant Director
Lisa L. Watson* Production Stage Manager
Tracy Thomas* Assistant Stage Manager
Moriah & Isabel Curly-Clay Scenic Designers
Jarrod Barnes Costume Designer
Toni Sterling Lighting Designer
Jeremiah Davison Sound Designer
Bradley Bergeron Video Designer
Merlande Pettthomme Wig Designer
Alexsis Simmons Props Designer
Monty Wilson Technical Director
Daimien Matherson Stagecraft Studios
Clifton Guterman Casting Director
Joyeux Times Intern
Jacqueline Sprinfield Dialect Coach
Astral Hackshaw Wardrobe
Uvenka Jean-Baptiste Wardrobe
Marcus Wardrobe
Jordan Griffin Wardrobe/Wigs
Byron Woodward Stage crew
Dinesha Hayes Wigs
Anton Dorsey Wigs
-- Brad Rudy (BKRudy@aol.com #JajasAfricanHairBraiding #JocelynBioh #KennyLeonsTrueColorsTheatre #SouthwestArtsCenter)
( * ) Premiered at the Manhattan Theatre Club, New York City, September 2023
Find More Information on Lucille Gaines HERE
Another share: From the Playwright’s note in the Acting Edition of this script:
“This play is for every person who enters the [hair-braiding salon]. Their hopes. Their dreams. Their incredible stories of how and why they came to this country. I celebrate these amazing women and thank them for what they do. To many people, they are just ‘hair braiding ladies,” random women people pass by on the street, but to me, they are heroes, craftswomen, and artists with beautiful, gifted, and skilled hands.”