Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, Where the Stories Intertwine Too
8 / 10
Jaja’s can sometimes veer a little formulaic or presentational: In the single-scene appearance of Jaja herself, Kakoma spends most of her time standing directly downstage center (in, not to spoil anything, an absolute battleship of a wedding gown), facing out and delivering a rousing monologue about her right to call America “my country.” It rings clear and true, though I wonder how the same speech would have felt had White oriented Jaja as much toward her fellow characters as toward us, or what its effect might have been in a theater space without such a flat, front-on relationship with the audience. But this isn’t subtle stuff, and it’s not meant to be. Instead, it’s bright, generous, and forceful, and those currents carry the day. As Miriam says, perhaps speaking partly for her playwright, “No more time for quiet. I want to be loud, yeah? … Yeah. Very loud.”
