If you saw Merry Wives, Jocelyn Bioh’s modern-day spin on The Merry Wives of Windsor, at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park in 2021, you might remember a scene with Madam Page in a Harlem hair-braiding salon. Perhaps Bioh (School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play) was giving us a hint of things to come with the joyous Jaja’s African Hair Braiding: an entire play set in just such a Harlem salon, dedicated to, as she says in her program note, the “heroes, craftswomen, and artists with beautiful, gifted and skilled hands” whom she has known throughout her life.
Whether braider or customer, Black American or of West African descent, every female character who steps foot in the salon in Bioh’s latest, now at the Samuel J. Friedman, is formidable and well-drawn, even if she speaks only a few lines. There’s Marie (Dominique Thorne), Jaja’s daughter, charged with opening, closing, and keeping everything humming; this morning, a 90-plus-degree summer day in 2019 on 125th Street, she is having one of those sleep-through-the-alarm, no-hot-water, insufficient-fare-MetroCard, slow-ass A-train NYC kind of mornings—we’ve all been there—all while lugging a week’s worth of new hair. Plus, she’s dealing with the shop’s crotchety through-wall air conditioner. Miriam (Brittany Adebumola) is there waiting, and kindly presents her with a bagel. “I saw CNN doctor say that if you want to lose weight, you have to not have too many ‘carbs,’” says Miriam, shrugging off Marie’s “you look amazing” (which, BTW, she does).
[Read David Finkle’s ★★★☆☆ review here.]
Next to arrive are Aminata (Nana Mensah) and Bea (Zenzi Williams), and we begin to realize that the braiders are like their own little family. (“Put on that music station,” Aminata says to Marie. “You know? With the song that I like by that one guy?” Insists Bea: “If you play it, we’ll know it.”) They don’t mind pulling one over on each other: Bea dumps a new customer, Jennifer (Rachel Christopher), onto an unsuspecting Miriam, because “Long micro braids? She is going to be in here all day.” In fact, she is. The morning-to-night process allows the seemingly shy Miriam to open up about her divorce and her daughter back in Sierra Leone. “Everyone think I’m quiet,” says Miriam. “I’m not like average African woman, eh. No more time for quiet. I want to be loud, yeah?”
The ladies also love to gossip, especially about Jaja’s impending marriage to a white man named Steven; Bea likens her wedding dress to “a bag of, eh, eh, what are those things—marshmallows.” And don’t get Bea started on her coworker Ndidi (Maechi Aharanwa); she accuses Ndidi of stealing everything from customers to her breakfast order. Throughout the day, we see customers come and go, most memorably: Vanessa (“Ugh, what is that smell? And why is this seat warm?!), who whines about everything before mercifully falling asleep, and Radia, a well-heeled former classmate of Marie’s (“I like never come to Harlem, but I really need to. It’s so cute up here”), both played by Lakisha May; and Chrissy, who wants superlong blonde Beyoncé braids for her birthday (“Okay ladies now let’s get in formation!”), played by Kalyne Coleman.
Eventually Jaja (Somi Kakoma) arrives, in full wedding regalia, looking nothing like a marshmallow—the spectacular costumes are by Dede Ayite, who also designed Bioh’s Merry Wives. “I’m telling you ladies. This is it. This is the life that God planned for me, you know?” Finally, she’s going to “get all of this nonsense immigration stuff out of the way.” (Jaja and Marie are from Senegal.) Notably, Marie is not going to the courthouse to see her mom become “Mrs. Jaja Jacobson.” She doesn’t like her soon-to-be-stepfather.
Jaja’s does have four male characters—the friendly neighborhood sock, jewelry, and DVD sellers, plus Aminata’s ne’er-do-well husband, all played by Michael Oloyede—but let’s be honest: It’s really about the women. And their hair, which is almost a character in itself. Those in the know won’t be surprised to learn that Nikiya Mathis is the hair and wig designer (there’s no one better). At the 2022 Obie Awards, where she was honored for sustained achievement in her field, Mathis spoke of “the laying-on of hands in hair.” Bioh’s play is a celebration of that.
Jaja’s African Hair Braiding opened Oct. 3, 2023, at the Friedman Theatre and runs through Nov. 19. Tickets and information: manhattantheatreclub.com
