The Broadway Theatre Review: MTC’s Jaja’s African Hair Braiding

By Ross

It’s a hot summer’s day in Harlem. In the year 2019. With America and its immigrant stance turned upside down and aggressively armed by orange-stained politics and divisive rhetoric. Stay inside, the weatherman says, and with that, the writing is on the walls in Jaja’s African Hair Braiding salon, story, and play, strutting confidently into MTC’s Samuel Friedman Theatre. The new play, written with a strong ear for authentic hair braiding engagement by Jocelyn Bioh (Public/SITP’s Merry Wives; School Girls: or, the African Mean Girls Play), finds its tight twists from within after the metal grate rises up. The new packs of hair have arrived, and the day is about to get started for these determined women who make the packaged hair ends meet in the micro braiding of that same hair, picked personally by the owner at large, Jaja. 

Jaja, as played with solid intention by Somi Kakoma (Off-Broadway’s Dreaming Zenzile), doesn’t make her grand matrimonial appearance until halfway through the play’s day, riding in on a sea of matrimonial white, perfectly costumed by designer Dede Ayite (Broadway’s American Buffalo). But way before that, we are first greeted with Jaja’s hard-working dreamer-daughter, the freshly frazzled and late Marie, played beautifully by Dominique Thorne (“If Beale Street Could Talk“), who runs up to the front to find the young and soft-spoken Miriam, passionately and quietly played by Brittany Adebumola (Hulu’s “The Other Black Girl“) waiting patiently by the door. Their conversation and connection ring true, rotating us into the salon with a gentle hand and a pull of a chain, thanks to the stellar set design of David Zinn (Broadway’s Kimberly Akimbo) matched perfectly by the strong work of lighting designer Jiyoun Chang (Broadway’s The Cottage) and sound designer/composer Justin Ellington (Broadway’s Ohio State Murders). 

Marie, doing the job her mother has tasked her, ushers us into the brightly-toned braiding shop with a simple edge. And as the crew of braiders file in, giving her their orders for the day, we understand the lay of the land, and how Marie is far beyond this, while being totally loyal to it. It’s business as usual, waiting for appointments and customers to walk through the door, as well as anticipating the arrival of the owner, who will be stopping by soon to show off her situation, and her wedding dress on her way to the courthouse to marry “her white man,” Steven. There’s so much to unpack there.

The women, all miraculously well-played by a cast of experts, have a lot to say about that union, and basically everything else, including each other’s lives, ways, and means, and rarely hold back. It’s touchingly well executed, even when sharply played. The atmosphere, as directed by Whitney White (NYTW’s On Sugarland; MCC’s Soft), gives off a tangible air of connection and unity. This is their second home, or maybe even their first, in a way, as this is the place where they are living forward, engaging and sharing their hearts and their fears with an abandonment that registers. “I feel like I moved in for the day,” says one customer, Jennifer, played beautifully by Rachel Christopher (Broadway’s for colored girls…), an aspiring journalist who is the first customer to arrive in the morning. She innocently asks for a long mane of micro-braids, a request that sends the more senior souls to change their open chairs to closed. They know full well that it will take whoever accepts the challenge all day, pretty much to closing time, to complete the job, and cause some pain and possibly bleeding of the fingertips.

But Abebumoia’s sweet Miriam takes on the task, and their engagement, client to braider, fills the space in a way that few others are given the chance. It opens up the salon to a world of vulnerable sharing and fantastic imagery, as they, over the course of the day, share their stories. It is in their captivating telling of love, courage, and passion, that we begin to understand a stratosphere of situations that exist in that room, giving them all the ability to take in the hazards and fears that exist outside those salon doors. A world that will eventually invade and pull apart this safe and maternal space. The writing is basically on the wall, and Maria seems to know it more internally, forever anxious for her future, and for the future her mother is trying to create on this day of matrimony.

Inside this supposedly bustling hair braiding salon in Harlem, this well-orchestrated group of West African immigrant hair braiders unpacks the trials and traumas of their existence, trying to create a world that fills them with the idea of control and connection. They show their fragilities and secrets while trying to remain regal in their upright frames. The play really understands this combative unity, and it unveils itself most dynamically in the two senior braiders that demand our attention from the get-go.

When Bea, the shop’s most senior, enters the space alongside Aminata, her ally and friend, we feel their presence and their confidence in their position. It’s a strong embodiment, and as the two actors, Zenzi Williams (NYTW’s RunBoyRun) and Nana Mensah (2ST’s Man From Nebraska) as these two souls live out their tumultuous day together, a history of their world is unleashed. And as presented by these two absolute anchors, the play works wonders, even if the groundwork they lay is simple and superficial at times. But without them, the explosive groundedness of the play would have been lost. Williams, as the bossy bullying Bea, gives off an energy that suggests so much, without ever having to unwrap it all for us. Mensah’s Aminata delivers a more defensive position edged in love and care. They are convincing and strong, even as we watch Bea harass her colleague braider, the young and possibly more talented Ndidi, played strong by Maechi Aharanwa (PR’s If Pretty Hurts…) who is seemingly taking over as the desired braider in the pack, no matter how hard Bea fights against her. And threatens her.

Helping to create this world of African braiding, two other superb actors find authenticity in the space and themselves as numerous different customers who come through that door, only to be led outside to be told the price – an act I was never really clear as to why that was the custom. But in a way, it added to the realness and otherness of the realm. Kalyne Coleman (Vineyard’s Lessons in Survival) and Lakisha May (NYTW’s Sojourners) play out three different clients, stealing the scenes with their excellence, with May taking over the space as the worst client of the year. She’s brilliantly funny from the moment she walks through that door. Yet it is in her slumping that she wins the day.

The other stars on that stage are all those impossibly perfect wigs, created by hair and wig designer Nikiya Mathis (Broadway’s Chicken & Biscuits; Topdog/Underdog) that miraculously walk through transitions that are as seamless as they are spectacular. Mathis has constructed pieces of developmental art, giving us a clear vantage point to witness the braiding process right before our eyes, teasing and twisting transitory changes magically, and advancing the energy and dynamic on that stage.

Yet, this is all in support of and a lead-up to the pivotal, somewhat formulaic presentation of Jaja, and the speech made to us all, front and center. It overflows and fills out the play as spectacularly as that wedding gown worn by its proud owner. It unpacks and displays the uncertainty of all those women and their circumstances in one solid smash, confronting and enlisting us to what lies, simmering just below the surface. And when it boils over, it engulfs them all, and us, in the outsider unfairness that this country has braided into immigration. It pulls this tightly-knit in-fighting community together, in maybe a tad too obvious manner. The play and its conflict twist this vantage point to its end as we watch the pack draw each other close to confront what it means to be an immigrant on the edge of the place they call home.