\u201cJaja\u2019s African Hair Braiding\u201d<\/a> she invites us to spend a day at the titular salon on a hot summer day in 2019. We are there when Marie (Jordan Rice), the 18-year-old daughter of the Senegalese proprietor, and Miriam (Bisserat Tseggai), a quietly spirited employee from Sierra Leone, open the shop\u2019s gate in the morning and we are there when Marie and the staff close up at the end of what turns out to be an extremely difficult day.<\/p>\nLives are altered as the salon workers go about their day braiding the hair of customers who range from docile and caring to feisty and acrimonious. The skill of these stylists, whose fingers ache from their intricate labor, has made it possible for them to make more prosperous lives for themselves in their adopted country. <\/p>\n
More prosperous yet no less precarious in an America that under Trump 1.0 is being taught to resent and vilify foreign workers. Marie hasn\u2019t been back to Senegal since she was 4 years old and doesn\u2019t even speak the language. But she had to attend high school in New York City under an alias, and even though she graduated valedictorian from a fancy private school, she has no idea how she\u2019ll pay for college, given her undocumented status.<\/p>\n
Jaja (Victoire Charles) is absent for much of the day for good reason. She\u2019s getting married to a man Marie doesn\u2019t particularly like. Mother, however, insists that she knows best. And the point of the marriage, in any case, isn\u2019t family bliss but citizenship. This developing plot line, however, stays in the background as customers turn up demanding to look like Beyonc\u00e9 or requesting micro braids, a labor-intensive torture for overworked hands. <\/p>\n
Bea (Claudia Logan), a Ghanaian worker with sharp opinions, has been at Jaja\u2019s the longest and has a sense of ownership about the place. A difficult co-worker, she\u2019s not only in everybody\u2019s private business but she seethes with resentment when her customers defect to her colleagues. <\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1759852571_342_\")
<\/p>\n
The company of \u201cJaja\u2019s African Hair Braiding\u201d at the Mark Taper Forum. <\/p>\n
(Javier Vasquez\/Center Theatre Group.)<\/p>\n
The chief target of Bea\u2019s ire is Ndidi (Abigail C. Onwunali), a go-getter from Nigeria who\u2019s faster at braiding and far more pleasant to be around. Bea vents her spleen to Aminata (Tiffany Renee Johnson), but even this agreeable work buddy starts to feel oppressed by her friend\u2019s judgmental nature. <\/p>\n
Jennifer (Mia Ellis), the customer who asks for the micro braids, sits patiently all day as Miriam shares deeply personal tales while doing her hair. An aspiring journalist, Jennifer is an empathetic witness not only to Miriam\u2019s struggles but to the hardships and bravery of all the women in the shop. <\/p>\n
As anyone who has spent time in a hair salon knows, the human comedy is on full display as relative strangers literally and figuratively let their hair down. Intimate confidences are not only allowed but encouraged in what inevitably becomes a makeshift community center, where problems are aired and solutions are offered whether they\u2019re welcome or not.<\/p>\n
Bioh and White lean into the theatricality of a space where Black women are allowed to uninhibitedly be themselves. Logan\u2019s Bea, a diva with a revolving grudge, never worries if she\u2019s being too bold or brash. She tests everyone\u2019s limits, but her grandiosity is something to see. <\/p>\n
Tseggai\u2019s Miriam seems demure but delivers a wild monologue about her unhappy marriage and subsequent all-consuming affair that confirms you can\u2019t judge a book by its cover. Johnson\u2019s Aminata tries to get along with everyone, but when Bea starts criticizing her marriage to James (Michael Oloyede), a transparently manipulative heel, Aminata defends herself with the same defiant vehemence she exhibits when breaking out in booty-shaking dance moves.<\/p>\n
Oloyede is so adept at differentiating the various male characters he plays that I was shocked that there was only one male actor at the curtain call. Leovina Charles and Melanie Brezill also play numerous comic characters of varying degrees of outrageousness. Together, these versatile actors help flesh out the Harlem neighborhood. <\/p>\n
The production wouldn\u2019t be what it is without Nikiya Mathis\u2019 dazzling wig, hair and makeup design and Dede Ayite\u2019s floridly vivid costumes. David Zinn\u2019s scenic design sets up shop in a way that locates the scene without obstructing the play\u2019s fluidity. Justin Ellington\u2019s original music and sound, Jiyoun Chang\u2019s lighting and Stefania Bulbarella\u2019s video design contribute to the flow of a production that, realistically unfolding over the course of a day, takes leaps in time and mood.<\/p>\n
When Jaja finally shows up in wedding regalia that she wears like a victory flag, the play hurtles toward its conclusion. The protections and benefits of her dream of citizenship are on the line in a system increasingly hostile to outsiders, even those making a profound economic and cultural contribution to the common good. <\/p>\n
Bioh wrote \u201cJaja\u2019s African Hair Braiding\u201d years before the military-style tactics of the second Trump administration went into authoritarian overdrive. But gifted playwrights know how to read the signs of a society in free fall.<\/p>\n
Hot-button politics, it must be stressed, aren\u2019t foremost here. The humanity of the characters is what matters most. Not all of the personalities in the hair salon are easy to get along with. Some of them, in fact, are quite exasperating. But Bioh loves all of her characters, which makes it easy for the audience to leave the theater feeling similarly. <\/p>\n
‘Jaja’s African Hair Braiding’<\/p>\n
Where:<\/b> Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A.<\/p>\n
When:<\/b> 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 1 and 7 p.m. Sundays. End Nov. 9<\/p>\n
Tickets:<\/b> Start at $40.25<\/p>\n
Contact:<\/b> (213) 628-2772 or https:\/\/www.centertheatregroup.org\/<\/a> <\/p>\nRunning time:<\/b> 1 hour, 30 minutes (no intermission)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Harlem hair salon at the center of \u201cJaja\u2019s African Hair Braiding,\u201d Jocelyn Bioh\u2019s exuberant workplace comedy, is…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":284285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[146326,146542,146536,1582,276,29070,8468,2385,146537,146541,146327,146538,2961,224,5337,146540,18075,146539,5039,10686],"class_list":{"0":"post-284284","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-african-hair-braiding","9":"tag-aminata","10":"tag-bea","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-california","13":"tag-citizenship","14":"tag-customer","15":"tag-day","16":"tag-hair-style","17":"tag-impossible-time","18":"tag-jaja","19":"tag-jocelyn-bioh","20":"tag-la","21":"tag-los-angeles","22":"tag-losangeles","23":"tag-marie","24":"tag-marriage","25":"tag-miriam","26":"tag-play","27":"tag-shop"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}