Chicago Shakespeare Theater is currently presenting Jocelyn Bioh’s Tony-award winning play and Broadway hit JAJA’S AFRICAN HAIR BRAIDING, through February 2, 2025, in The Yard, its comfortable all-seats-have-sightlines facility located upstairs at 800 E. Grand Street, Navy Pier, Chicago. A 90-minute delight, this is a remarkably timely and moving presentation. At the hour of the press opening, January 17th, it had just been announced that President Trump planned to send 200 federal agents into Chicago on Inauguration Day- also Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day- to arrest homeless “illegal” immigrants.
Jaja’s is composed of a group of outsider West African immigrants and a Dreamer child, and the backbone of the story, overlaid with playful, colorful language and actions, centers on the simmering uncertainties in each of their life circumstances.
In a notably crowded but spotless braiding salon on a blistering hot day in 2019, in Harlem, New York, 17 characters skillfully portrayed by 10 actors administer aesthetics to make their customers look and feel oh-so nice-nice. They dance, they weave, they prep strands, they tease, they laugh, and they make you wish you were with them. You want to bicker, support the girl-women, strut your stuff, correct and connect with each other. But underneath the beautifying, as their fingers fly through raggedy mops and transform them into Beyoncê-esque shining do’s, the myriad stressors in their lives emerge in stories and choreographed scenes.
Every person in every audience has experience as a client in a “beauty shop”, where the “operators” encourage their patrons to dish the dirt. In Jaja’s, however, it’s the weavers’ stories that emerge, as the women, modishly and colorfully dressed, posture, preen, compete and complain. They’re unafraid to challenge each other. One is stealing customers, one is upstaged by a wealthy show-off school chum, one spiels the details of a scandalous background, one is patently being used by her man. All of the action is tightly directed by Whitney White, who maneuvered the personnel and dialogue in lifelike and life- enhancing relation to each other.
The play is, in a word, a joy! Written with a sparkling wit, the dialogue, the inflections of nuance, timbre and expression, the exuberant body language are proud, natural- and the script is not just engaging, it’s hilarious!
Each personality is necessary to the entire story. Younger, older, more and less endowed with partners in love and in the shadow of uncertainty, facing up to the bad news we can feel coming on this ultra-hot day. When trouble arrives and closes the shop, these women unfailingly listen to one another, bringing to each other’s lives friendship, understanding and the means to carry on. Their ability to be for each other a family, a source of strength, should bring to all of us who have identifiable means of security a pausing to acknowledge what is most important.
The cast was inspired and inspiring: Melanie Brezill, Leovina Charles, Victoire Charles, Mia Ellis, Tiffany Renee Johnson, Jordan Rice, Awa Sal Secka, Aisha Sougou, Yao Dogbe and Bisserat Tseggai were- separately and as an ensemble- believable and they inspired belief.
Kudos to the production team: David Zinn, set designer for the charming visuals; Dede Ayite, costume designer for the adorable’ outfits (and those shoes!); Jiyoun Chang, lighting designer for heating it all up; smokin’ original music composition and sound design by Justin Ellington ; beautifully integrated backgrounds by video designer Stefania Bulbarella; too-cool toppings by hair and wig designer, Nikiya Mathis; and lyrical voices by dialect and vocal coach Yetunde Felix-Ukwu.
All photos by Charles Erickson
For information and tickets to JAJA’S AFRICAN HAIR BRAIDING, and all the fine shows at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, go to www.chicagoshakespeare.com
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