• Jaja’s African Hair Braiding (live streaming)

11/18/23 (Sat)

This highly praised show was being live streamed in the final week of its Broadway run. The League of Live Stream Theater, which was providing the broadcast, made everything super easy. When I discovered that I had accidentally bought tickets for the wrong performance, they instantly cleared it up for me, and when a friend who I had gifted a ticket couldn’t get online 30 seconds before the show, they immediately sent him a new e-mail that allowed him to catch the show from the beginning. Three cheers for them. The show has drawn crowds in New York but at a notably low average ticket price, suggesting that they’re attracting different audiences than usual; my friend felt from the laughter that many viewers must have been black since they recognized small points that others wouldn’t understand (as he proved to me). If so, that’s a very good thing for Broadway. Let’s hope that’s emulated in other shows.

The setting is a beauty salon specializing in hair braiding for black women, staffed entirely by immigrants from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Ghana and elsewhere in Africa, speaking varying degrees of English. Each of the braiders has her own chair and clientele, the rule being that prices are to be worked out privately with the client outside the shop. They naturally have their own personality quirks and problems: the owner Jaja’s daughter wants to be a writer against her mom’s wishes and has serious immigration worries, a bossy older braider who worked her way up from house cleaner thinks one of the younger braiders is stealing her clients, another has a small child back in Africa that her husband thinks mistakenly is his, another has man issues, and so forth. There’s gossip galore, of course, as well as a television set playing Nigerian television shows and an amusing range of clients, street salesmen and others with their own characters.

The focus of the chatter and subject of some suspicion is the impending marriage of Jaja to a white man, which will give her (and effectively her daughter) the US visa that she craves. Jaja makes a brief sweeping appearance late (rather too late) in the show on triumphant way to her wedding, including an unfortunate speech about the American dream. Her fate thereafter brings the girls together, and while that remains unresolved at the end, the determination and sense of community among the women itself becomes the theme.

The stories are not quite integrated (so to speak) nor particularly original, but playwright Jocelyn Bioh, who also did the fun Ghana-set adaptation of Mean Girls, has a great ear for dialogue and keeps things moving swiftly. The cast is all female other than a sole actor (who plays three roles). It’s basically a black version of Steel Magnolias or female version of Barbershop, but has its own take on the material that is constantly engaging. Braiding lends itself to long dialogues since the process evidently takes hours – one client came at the start of the show (morning) and didn’t leave until near the end (evening). Bioh made the most of it. I could have done without the illegal immigration subplot – they take a jab at Trump for his reference to “sh*thole” countries, which they assume means Africa, but I don’t see them rushing to go back – and would have preferred the more interesting stories of how these women cope in a starkly different environment. But there’s enough humor and good banter to make up for it.

Director Whitney White used a revolving stage to get smoothly from outside to inside, though it seems she could have just used a drop for the few moments out of the shop. Her direction was efficient and unobtrusive. The braided wigs deserved a bow of their own; I couldn’t tell from the screen how they were being shifted so seamlessly from scene to scene, but the handlers did a terrific job. The costumes were also fun, topped by Jaja’s wild wedding dress, and the beauty salon was nicely detailed.

The standouts among the performers were Dominique Thorne as the put-upon daughter and especially Somi Kakoma as the domineering older braider, but the cast was solid from top to bottom. Kudos to Michael Oloyede and Lakisha May for their adept efforts in triple roles; the latter’s portrayal of one particularly obnoxious client was hilarious. The streaming was extremely well done with few artificial close ups or other film techniques, nicely catching the nature of live theater. It was equal to the best of the NT Live shows. (The screen froze up at least four times, though, which was irritating. The volume also varied on occasion. And that happened with my friend viewing from LA as well, so it wasn’t just my connection. They need to work on that.)

A very entertaining play all around. Well worth the money. Fingers crossed that they continue this experiment for other Broadway shows – the soon-to-close Purlie Victorious would be a good start.