How do you write about something so close to you? This is the question that Jocelyn Bioh answers so deftly in Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, and it’s the question that I’m trying to answer now.
Jaja’s is about Jaja’s, a hair braiding shop at the corner of W 125th and St. Nicholas Avenue. In an alternate universe in which everything is the same except Jaja’s actually exists, I would have walked past this shop almost every day during the 8-ish minute walk from my apartment to the gym when I first moved to NYC.
When I watched the piece, I saw my aunts. I saw my mom. I saw the braided banyangs I got when I last visited Nigeria over a decade ago. I heard the hair braider who called me big-head in our native language, likely assuming that I couldn’t understand.
And while I bristled against the line “Jaja is your mother but she could be any of us.” placed in the context of the thorny U.S. immigration system and Bad White People, it’s true that Jaja could be any number of people that I know. Jaja’s felt like a different world where, for once, Blackness could exist without being in opposition to another force; whiteness was not canon to this universe.
So much so, that I was jolted every time white people were mentioned in the play (Jaja marrying “a white man? No!”). My selective amnesia re: yt ppl points towards my biggest question about the play as it functions within the wider landscape of the White American Theatre™: when people come to see a story they’re not in, do they get to come along for the ride, or should they be left in the dust? Or, to put it another way, what belongs to just you/me/us?
We have Ndidi (Maechi Aharanwa), who’s temporarily working at Jaja’s after a fire at her usual spot; she minds her business--in stark contrast to Bea’s (Zenzi Williams) insistence on being in everyone’s business but her own. Miriam’s (Brittany Adebumola) introversion gives way to a detailed autobiographical scene revealing her to be a Hot Girl. Meanwhile, Aminata (Nana Mensah) is down bad, and Marie (Dominique Thorne) is holding it down for 1st born African daughters around the globe.
The rest of the world is filled in by customers and frequenters, portrayed in precise succession by Kalyne Coleman, Lakisha May, and Michael Oloyede. Not to mention, Jennifer (Rachel Christopher), who has clearly made a myriad of choices to be sitting for microbraids in the middle of the summer heat.
And then there’s the doubly-eponymous Jaja (Somi Kakoma)--an enigmatic shroud over the play. She only appears in the last third--a vivacious presence who articulates the thesis of the play: we are here to stay. But when you’re surrounded by symptoms of impermanence--perilous immigration statuses, dicey rental situations, flimsy relationships--such a statement hits the ear as a prayer rather than as a statement of fact.
But I do think that precarity encourages a commitment to utility. And in Jaja’s, this is magnified in the technical elements of the show. The wigs were witchcraft--how did Jennifer get a 12 hour style in 90 minutes without leaving the stage? Props to Nikiya Mathis. The TV, with video design by Stefania Bulbarella, pulled double duty as both timekeeper and DJ booth. The set was gorgeous, beautifully designed by David Zinn. And extra credit to the fact that the rotation of the stage felt useful--there wasn’t a lazy susan in the stage for no reason.
To that point, everything felt useful; from the lights, to the props, to the text itself. Nothing existed just because it could; it served a purpose, even if that purpose was spiritual or emotional. It felt very Black, and very African, in that way. Or, to borrow an idiom from my grandfather, yak mbiọñ adọñ owo yak akere mkpọ.
The meaning is just for me.
Ekemini’s rating of “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding”
Jaja’s African Hair Braiding was written by Jocelyn Bioh, directed by Whitney White, and features Brittany Adebumola, Maechi Aharanwa, Rachel Christopher, Kalyne Coleman, Somi Kakoma, Lakisha May, Nana Mensah, Michael Oloyede, Dominique Thorne and Zenzi Williams. It is running until November 19th at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre.