Review: SpeakEasy Stage Company's JAJA'S AFRICAN HAIR BRAIDING

There’s always something to look at in a beauty parlor – from yourself in the mirror, to other customers and their stylists, to old magazines.

And when it comes to the humble Harlem hair salon in Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, now in its New England premiere at SpeakEasy Stage in the Roberts Studio Theatre, Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA, through May 31, make that something to marvel at.

This isn’t the first play set in a hair salon, of course. There was off-Broadway’s and later Broadway’s “Steel Magnolias,” which begat a hit 1989 movie of the same name, and will Boston theatergoers ever forget “Shear Madness,” which ran at the Charles Playhouse for 40 years? What makes “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding” different is that it takes place at an establishment run by, and primarily for,  West African women, including immigrants and Dreamers. And while there is menacing drama in the air, there is also plenty of joy and laugh-out-loud humor to be had.

Written by Ghanaian-American Jocelyn Bioh – whose “School Girls: Or, The African Mean Girls Play” was presented by SpeakEasy in 2019 – “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding” premiered at Broadway’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on October 3, 2023, for a limited run, receiving two Tony awards the following year.

Set on a hot summer day in 2019, Jaja’s is open for business even as its namesake proprietor is away on business of her own and hours away from a green-card wedding to a man her staffers find dubious. While that is going on offstage, the Stylists are busy braiding their clients and braying at each other.

The shop’s senior stylist, Bea (the always splendid Crystin Gilmore), is in high dudgeon as she watches her longtime clients take their business to a younger, in-demand colleague, Ndidi (Catia, fresh off her terrific turn in Lyric Stage’s “Crumbs from the Table of Joy”). The exchange of pointed barbs that results from this hostile takeover leads to simmering tensions exacerbated by the salon’s faulty air conditioner.

Winning performances are also given by MarHadoo Effeh as the quietly dignified Miriam, an immigrant from Sierra Leone working her fingers almost literally to the bone to bring her young daughter to the U.S., and Dru Sky Berman as the industrious Marie, Jaja’s daughter, who balances managing the salon with dreams of attending college to study writing. Marie holds on to hope, all the while worrying about her immigration status and endeavoring to manage her mother’s expectations for her.

The salon’s other customers are played by Hampton Richards as Jennifer, who comes in seeking long, tight braids – a day-long process – and the versatile Ashley Aldarondo and Yasmeen Duncan, who play the six other clients and make each one unique.

As the only male in the cast, Joshua Olumide – whose memorable performances in “Sojourners” and “The Grove” helped launch the Ufot Family Cycle at the Huntington – tackles four different roles here. While three of the four, Sock Man, Jewelry Man, and DVD Man, are quirky and likeable, his fourth, James, the adulterous husband of Bea’s friend and fellow stylist Aminata (the luminous Kwezi Shongwe), is anything but.

Late in the one-act play, Jaja – resplendent in a white wedding dress and a hat reminiscent of the now-iconic headpiece worn by Aretha Franklin at President Obama’s first inauguration, and a life force in the hands of the marvelous MaConnia Chesser – arrives back at her business. Jaja is more than just the salon owner, she is the beating heart of the business, as is clear when, surrounded by her stylists and customers who shower her with money in a celebratory ritual common to Nigerian weddings, she exults in happiness.

When figurative clouds move in on the revelry, Bioh’s layered writing and Summer L. Williams’s nuanced direction movingly demonstrate that these women have their own power and will waste no time pulling together and putting it to work to help a friend.

Like the characters in this production, vividly costumed by Danielle Domingue Sumi, scenic designer Janie E. Howland’s set is bright and eye-catching, with well-chosen props coordinated by Andrew Reynolds. Nadja Vanterpool’s hair and wigs are almost worthy of co-star credit as they create the feeling of a real hair salon. That the actors playing The Stylists appear expert in all manner of braiding also adds authenticity to the action.