Review: DON'T TOUCH MY HAIR at Unicorn Theatre
Completing the "Deep Breath" Trilogy
It is not often that Kansas City audiences get the chance to see the “World Premiere” engagement of a new comedy from an award-winning Broadway performer and playwright. This month Unicorn Theatre presents “Don’t Touch My Hair,” by Douglas Lyons.
“Don’t Touch My Hair” is a cutting-edge comedy that completes Lyons’ “Deep Breath Trilogy: New Plays For Black Women” dedicated to black women. “Chicken and Biscuits” opened on Broadway in 2021and went on to become the second most produced play in the nation. “Table 17” opened Off-Broadway in 2024 to excellent reviews.
Lyons’ plays have shown the ability to attract name performers like Norm Lewis and Kara Young. He has proven an ability to facilely deal with dialog and write reliable comedy situations. Lyons has also shown a remarkable range in his writings. “Don’t Touch My Hair” is definitely written for an adult audience. His “Polkadots” was the winner of the Off-Broadway Alliance Award Winner for Best Family Show. He has also written for Nickelodeon and for both seasons of “Fraggle-Rock.”
That said. Lyons has the ability to tailor his writing to a defined audience. This play, “Don’t Touch My Hair” is written through the lens of a black person specifically black women.
Before I set the situation, I should like to make it clear that I am an older white man. Some people are going to be offended by this material. Others (not necessarily only black audience members) are going to stand up and cheer between laughs.
I am put in mind of a particular college Political Science Professor I had in the late 1960s. He was discussing machine politics in the late 1800s. He described how votes were purchased by ward healers who distributed baskets of food and buckets of coal. We asked him if that was a good thing?
“It all depends on whose ox is getting gored,” he replied.
The set up for this comedy is an apartment shared by Jade (Haley Johnson) and Eemani (Amber Redman). Eemani has just returned from a job interview.
She wants to become a fashion designer. The business owner, Susan (Ashlee LaPine) has mightily offended Eemani. She storms back into the apartment thoroughly frustrated to the point that she feels the need to relax with the aid of a shared hit of weed with her roommate Jade.
Jade has her own frustrations having to do with her inability to find a suitable male companion. The last candidate, Harold (Sam Cordes) appears nice enough, but he is afflicted with a terrible case of halitosis.
Jade rummages around until she finally locates her last marijuana cigarette. They light up and share a couple of totes. Unfortunately or fortunately (depending on your point of view), the marijuana they smoke has something additional added to the smoking mix and unexpectedly transports the roommates magically back to the antebellum South.
Eemani is invisible except to Jade who now appears to be a house slave to horrible Harold (the halitosis guy) and Susan (the business owner) only now (or then) these two are a couple, the Willwrights (Theodore and Susan). I may have a couple of these dual identities turned around.
Anyway, Theodore Willwright is kind of a cartoon plantation owner dressed in bib overalls and carrying a shotgun. Isabella Willwright is dissatisfied with her marriage and lusting after Alik (Rufus Burns), a huge enslaved field hand. Jade is now Angeleen, a house slave (a la Butterfly McQueen in “Gone With The Wind”). Suffice it to say the slaves and the invisible Eemani reverse the tables on their “Masters”
The comedy is broad and physical. The goal is to reverse perceived grievances in a fun way. Another goal is to create different parts for black women in ways that have not been available to them in enough numbers before.
The revelation is the way vocabulary and perception are specific to certain demographic populations of people. What is funny to one group will be offensive to others. The intent here is not to be offensive. The wise viewer will see this play as a window into parts of another perception or reality.
The director of “Don’t Touch My Hair” is Teisha M. Banks. She has done a fine job of directing a lot of physical comedy. Timing is spot-on. Jade and Eemani have a gift for this kind of material. At times, dialects would benefit from an emphasis on enunciation without dropping dialect. Good jokes in the dialogue fly on by not hitting as I think they could.
I guess my old professor had a point. “It does depend on whose ox is getting gored.”
“Don’t Touch My Hair” continues at the Unicorn through May 24, 2026. Tickets are available online or by telephone at 816.531.PLAY (7529).
Photos by Don Ipock
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