“What kind of perfect immigrant are they looking for anyway?” laments Jaja (Victoire Charles), the Senegalese owner of the eponymous shop in Jaja’s African Hair Braiding. It’s an impossible standard to meet, but Jocelyn Bioh’s uplifting and uproarious ensemble comedy, now running at Arena Stage, artfully confounds its hypocrisies. This regional tour of the Tony-nominated Broadway production opens Arena’s fall season. Next, it travels to co-producers Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Chicago Shakespeare Theater, where it will surely continue to resonate with audiences who find community at establishments like Jaja’s, much as it does here.
The play opens on a scorching day in Harlem, where Jaja’s teenage daughter Marie (Jordan Rice) oversees the shop while her mother prepares to secure their citizenship status by marrying a mysterious White American. In Marie’s charge are a pan-African staff made up of charming Aminata (Tiffany Renee Johnson), gossipy Bea (Awa Sal Secka), fiery Miriam (Bisserat Tseggai), and chill Ndidi (Aisha Sougou). The quintet caters to a carousel of eccentric customers played by Melanie Brezill and Colby N. Muhammad, several colorful vendors and paramours played by Yao Dogbe, and one kindly journalist (Mia Ellis), all while juggling petty dramas and life-altering decisions. Looming over it all is Jaja’s impending wedding, a precarious arrangement that grows more dubious by the hour.
As relayed in literary manager Otis Ramsey-Zöe’s program note, Bioh sees the shop itself as the central character, an intention that rings true in the way it has been constructed and inhabited under director Whitney White’s guidance. A proscenium adorned with photos of Black women with a range of hairstyles frames designer David Zinn’s vibrant set, which unfolds at the top of the show into a pink hideaway backed by glimpses of a gritty neighborhood street visible through the windows. Bags of multicolored hair, magazine cutouts, and the occasional West African flag adorn the walls around the mirrors and chairs, lending the workspace a homey touch. It’s a finely rendered haunt that, despite its New York setting, could just as easily fit on Georgia Avenue NW.
Of course, it’s the women themselves who give the shop life. The uniformly strong cast takes easily to the play’s well-balanced archetypes and nails the laughs with vigor (witness how the whole staff shrinks in terror at a customer request that promises hours of finger-breaking labor). While some portrayals, particularly among the background characters, trend rather broad, White’s astute hand ensures there is room to register such rich shades as Bea’s simmering resentment, Aminata’s lovelorn reminiscences, and Marie’s post-high school anxieties. Fittingly, their work is neatly intertwined with the exceptional hair and wigs designed by Nikiya Mathis. With Mathis’ craft and the cast’s sleight of hand, the women appear to fast-forward through hours of braiding, illustrating not only the passage of time but the ways in which honest labor brings people together (or sets them apart).
In this, the play delivers on the promise to celebrate African diasporic beauty, even as it accentuates the perils of the women’s immigrant status in contrast to their American counterparts’ self-assuredness. Jaja’s triumphant arrival late in the play—in a Dede Ayite-designed gown so extravagant it defies the laws of physics—provides an especially pointed commentary on the subject. Jaja evidently relishes the opportunity to claim America as her country but nevertheless warns that the very same country is always changing the rules for people like them. Though Charles essays her part imperiously, her cameo lands heavily in a play that otherwise moves as nimbly as the women’s fingers. Then again, at a time when racist claims about Black immigrants (claims too utterly preposterous to repeat here) have gone mainstream, perhaps this bluntness is merited.
Ultimately, the gravity of Jaja and Marie’s situation is inescapable, but thankfully, so is the pleasure in watching these women joke, spar, toil, and dream. Jaja’s African Hair Braiding honors their experience by ringing with truth as much as it rings with laughter. But by all means, don’t take the word of a White guy who barely combs his hair: See it for yourself, and take the roars of laughter and cheers of recognition from those in the know.
Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, written by Jocelyn Bioh and directed by Whitney White, runs through October 13 at Arena Stage. Fall Arts Guide Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars. arenastage.org. $45–$109.