Race and class bubble over in the pressure cooker of life for an immigrant in America in the fiery hot-button comedy “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding.”
Welcome to a bustling Harlem hair salon in Jocelyn Bioh’s bittersweet 90-minute romp, directed by Whitney White in its engaging West Coast premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre through Dec. 15.
Gossip and intuition flow like wine when the brassy Bea (Awa Sal Secka) and the chill Aminata (Tiffany Renee Johnson) chat, but the long-simmering subtext is always there, too. Amid the complaints about various shady men in their lives and the exuberant jostling over who stole whose clientele, there is always the fear of the world outside the salon.
The melodramatic Bea often takes potshots at spirited newcomer Ndidi (the deft Aisha Sougou) over coveted customers in some of the play’s funniest moments. Bioh, best known for “School Girls, or; the African Mean Girls Play,” delicately laces the hilarity with strands of doubt and foreboding. The never-ending stream of dubious customers, nimbly played by Melanie Brezill and Leovina Charles, add to the high-jinks in this Tony-nominated piece.
For all their smarts and savvy, these women are all too aware that they are outsiders in a country that doesn’t always welcome immigrants. That prickly sense of anxiety, constantly reading the tea leaves as a matter of survival, is just part of the ecosystem, like the blistering summer heat.
All of these women immigrated from a different part of West Africa but all had the same dream of a better life. The gentle-hearted Miriam’s (a luminous Bisserat Tseggai) heart-rending story about breaking away from a louse of a husband, having to leave her little girl behind to make a stab at a new life, cuts to the bone.
These resilient women don’t mind working until their hands blister and bleed if it means getting closer to one day getting their papers and becoming a real American who doesn’t have to skulk and hide from ICE raids.
Despite the never-ending onslaught of customers from hell and the constant financial crunch, the salon is like a sanctuary, a safe space. Until it isn’t.
Marie (a sensitive turn by Jordan Rice), JaJa’s brainy daughter, is closest to seizing the brass ring. She even became her high school’s valedictorian by passing herself off as her cousin Kelly, using borrowed documents to register for class. The entrepreneurial Jaja (a regal Victoire Charles) may be a badass but she knows she will only get so far in New York. It’s up to Marie to make good for all of them.
While White’s production needs to sharpen its pace and tempo a tad, there’s no denying the depth and urgency of the play’s themes, not to mention the wry pleasures of the text, Bioh’s rich gift for the idiosyncrasies of language and dialect, the rollicking musicality of speech. Dede Ayite’s costumes heighten the sassy vibe.
Truth be told, whether or not we want braids in our hair, we may all secretly long to become regulars at Jaja’s, a vibrant hub of charm, guts and pluck.
Contact Karen D’Souza at karenpdsouza@yahoo.com.
‘JAJA’S AFRICAN HAIR BRAIDING’
By Jocelyn Bioh, presented by Berkeley Repertory Theatre
Through: Dec. 15
Where: Berkeley Rep’s Peet’s Theatre, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley
Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $25-$134; 510-647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org
