Jaja’s African Hair Braiding: A Review
★★★★★ — Laughs, tears, and joy-filled moments collide in Jocelyn Bioh’s incredible new play
Never has a play resonated so deeply with me as has Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, a new play by genius Jocelyn Bioh (you may know her from School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play or her adaption of Merry Wives that played at the Delacorte Theatre in 2021).
This coming from someone who has never once stepped into a hair braiding shop.
Unfortunately, the play has closed (although thankfully it did extend a few times). I honestly wish I would’ve been able to see it a few hundred more times.
I love musicals, but I’ve never been big on straight plays, but this one was absolutely magnificent. I was laughing the whole way through, up until the last 15 minutes, when things got heavy and I got teary. I don’t think a show has made me laugh and cry at the same time as much as this one has.
I watched it via livestream, which was a great alternative for me as someone who doesn’t live in Manhattan, and I’m so glad they chose to do this — I didn’t even know livestreaming was a thing in the theatre world! Before you move on, I’d like to note that the rest of this review will contain spoilers, which I think is slightly more reasonable given that the show closed a few days ago.
The show doesn’t really have too much of a plot until the very end, but I’ll go over what there was.
Basically, Jaja is running a hair braiding shop in Harlem. Today is her wedding day to a white man. Some of the employees joke about it being a sham marriage, which makes Jaja’s daughter Miriam nervous.
Some customers come in, along with a newer woman to the shop who got the job after her own hair braiding shop burned down. Bea, a relatively pushy and unlikeable employee of the shop, gets mad at one of her own former customers who decided to book a braiding with the new woman. Bea ends up having to go outside to take a walk at the advice of some other coworkers, giving her a bad impression for us viewers.
It’s revealed that Miriam is using her cousin’s ID and doesn’t have one of her own when a different customer calls her Kelly. Eventually Jaja comes to the shop directly before the wedding, dancing and cheering with the other employees. Miriam and Jaja argue about the ID issue and the marriage, but Jaja leaves to be wed anyway.
Later that night, a man comes into the store crying, telling Miriam that Jaja has been arrested for sham marriage — the man she married also has a wife and kids in another state, acting as a total mood shift for the play. Miriam breaks down in tears, and Bea, who we’ve gotten a bad impression of, stands up among all the sadness and tells Miriam that she is going to her house tonight, and that she will be safe, and that Jaja will be okay.
The play then ends, leaving us on a dark note.
Hopefully you can generally see why the show is so impactful to me, but it’s impossible to do justice through writing. Alongside the plot, the set and wigs are so well done, and the cast does an incredible job of embodying each character. I’m looking forward to seeing what each cast member does with their acting career in the future.
Thus, I’ve rated the show five stars. This show, like Bioh’s other works, will likely end up being licensed for amateur and community productions, so if you have a chance to catch it somewhere else, I would greatly recommend the play!
Thank you for reading! If you liked the read, I’d appreciate it if you applauded once or twice :)
