This dazzling world premiere from Jocelyn Bioh welcomes you into Jaja’s bustling hair braiding salon in Harlem where every day, a lively and eclectic group of West African immigrant hair braiders are creating masterpieces on the heads of neighborhood women. During one sweltering summer day, love will blossom, dreams will flourish and secrets will be revealed. The uncertainty of their circumstances simmers below the surface of their lives and when it boils over, it forces this tight-knit community to confront what it means to be an outsider on the edge of the place they call home.
The beauty of “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding” is the play’s ability to bring life to a seemingly mundane space. On the set designed by David Zinn, the salon’s walls are painted a deep, robust pink, with bags of braiding hair hanging along the walls. The television screen propped near the ceiling displays Afrobeats music videos or a Nollywood movie more enticing than anything seen in the theaters recently. Carts full of combs, braiding gel and oil sheen sliding over the floor feel familiar to any Black woman who has spent a good portion of her life in those worn leather chairs. Still, the play moves beyond the intricate hairstyles—though many are displayed here (the hair and wig design is by Nikiya Mathis)—to highlight the women at the heart of these shops. These are women boasting bold laughs and heavy hearts, who twist and manipulate hair until their fingers swell from the effort.
You don’t need to be a Black woman with braids to enjoy this play: heck, it might teach you something about the intricacies of a craft you only have observed from afar. But this play is also trying to reach a Black audience, long ignored by Broadway. It took producers a while, but there are signs in this still-young season that many have finally figured out that many of the audience members they want to reach are not looking for dramas about pain, aimed mostly at white audiences, but instead want affirmative experiences that offer laughs at human foibles and celebrate doing something really well, day in, day out. “Jaja’s” is a comedy about life as it is lived in this place, about community, aspiration and entrepreneurship. Mostly, though, it’s a show about immigrants getting the job done, and having fun doing it, one braid at a time.
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