‘Jaja’s African Hair Braiding’ solid talks humor, political turmoil

A hair braiding store is greater than a salon, it’s a group middle. As a Black lady, typically you see the one that braids your hair greater than you see your physician or your therapist, says Bisserat Tseggai, who performs stylist Miriam in “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding,” which staged its L.A. premiere Sunday at Heart Theatre Group’s Mark Taper Discussion board.

Written by Jocelyn Bioh, the uproarious comedy, which opened on Broadway in 2023, explores a day within the lifetime of a West African salon in Harlem. Over the course of a scorching summer time day, 4 hairdressers and a younger receptionist spar and bond with one another and a parade of consumers who arrive searching for transformation each bodily and religious.

It’s an excessive rarity to see a stage stuffed with Black ladies, says Claudia Logan, who performs a combative however lovable stylist named Bea. Make it a narrative about West African ladies and Black hair and also you’ve received an actual unicorn in relation to illustration on Broadway, she provides.

“It actually made ‘hairstory,’ proper?” she says with amusing. “It’s now my obligation to carry forth these particular voices representing the minorities of a rustic that was constructed on the work of minorities.”

Logan is sitting round a desk in a downtown rehearsal room with Tseggai and two different solid mates, Jordan Rice and Victoire Charles. The ladies smile and joke as they speak, however they’re additionally fairly critical. The play may be a comedy, however its themes run deep.

“It’s a really weak place to be in when any individual is manipulating your hair, particularly as a Black lady, when our hair is so scrutinized within the outdoors world,” says Tseggai. “And I believe that folks don’t notice how a lot dialog occurs in a spot like this due to how lengthy it takes to do our hair.”

One of many earliest gags within the present comes when a buyer asks for micro braids and the stylists out of the blue fake they’re unavailable. The painstaking work is left to Tseggai’s Miriam, a younger immigrant from Sierra Leone who’s working to ship cash to her 5-year-old daughter again house. The shopper sits within the chair for all the day, and when it’s over, Miriam’s fingers are so blistered that the others rush to get her an Epsom salt soak.

The present celebrates and acknowledges the labor of ladies who are sometimes missed, says Rice, who performs Marie, the college-age receptionist and daughter of the store’s proprietor who’s absent many of the play as a result of her impending marriage. Rice arrived on the rehearsal room after getting her hair achieved in lengthy, thick braids with afro puffs on the backside.

“I used to be there at 7 a.m. and I left at 11:30,” says Rice. “4 and a half hours that lady was working in my hair — washing it, drying it, slicing it.”

To arrange for his or her roles, the actors took three braiding workshops. They labored with wig heads and realized to do every fashion that their character is requested to create within the present. In the course of the workshops Rice says her fingers cramped, her again harm and her toes ached.

“And it simply gave me a deeper appreciation for the individuals who all through my life have achieved my hair,” she says. “Sure, your story must be advised. All of the issues that occur, all the damage and tear in your physique must be highlighted too as a result of the individuals who make us look stunning ought to really feel stunning by being represented on this stage.”

The ladies, says Charles, remind her of her mom, a Haitian immigrant who labored as a nurse for 40 years, not simply because she cherished it, however as a result of she needed to — she was striving for a greater life, and despatched Charles and her two brothers to non-public faculty. Her dad and mom, Charles says, “needed us to have a sure model of the American dream.”

“Jaja’s African Hair Braiding” is deeply involved with the concept of the American dream — what it’s and who’s allowed to realize it. Jaja makes a fierce speech towards the tip of the play wherein she asks what shall be sufficient to make her accepted in America — if she is requested to go away, ought to she do it earlier than or after she “raises your youngsters” or “cleans your home?”

The ladies snort knowingly when Charles mentions that the play takes place in 2019 and that the characters don’t know what’s coming politically. The play makes a reference to President Trump calling sure African nations “s— gap” international locations, however the ongoing immigration raids and anti-diversity, fairness and inclusion govt orders that arrived with the second Trump administration had but to be felt.

Tseggai’s dad and mom emigrated from Eritrea, and she or he says that many Eritreans have come to see the play. There’s a deep sense of shared group and kinship, and irrespective of who they’re, they name one another cousin, auntie and uncle. Their solely dream once they got here to America was of survival, Tseggai says.

“The place can I am going on this world the place I shall be secure from battle, the place I’ll have entry to scrub water and meals, the place my youngsters might be secure and educated?” she says. “As a Black particular person I really feel like I’ve seen sufficient to know to not count on past a sure level as a result of it’s not secure to on this nation, not proper now, a minimum of. The dream that’s been bought — that’s constantly bought — is fake promoting.”

There isn’t any hiding from the fraught political setting at this time, the ladies say, however nonetheless they select to concentrate on the resiliency of Black and brown folks. They recall that they opened the tour in Washington, D.C., in September 2024 when Kamala Harris was the primary Black lady to lead a presidential ticket. They had been in Berkeley when Harris misplaced to Trump and the temper on set was dismal. Rice remembers saying, “OK, God, received it. So that is what you’re requiring of me.”

Theater has a manner of illuminating the fact of any state of affairs — and it all the time exists inside its given historic context, which is why the ladies say they quickly realized they’d their work reduce out for them. “We’ve work to do,” uttered by Logan’s Bea, is among the many most profound moments of the play.

“As a storyteller, I imagine that my job is to serve in the best way that I understand how, which is to present reality,” Logan says. “And the reality is, instances are so bleak proper now that we actually don’t assume there’s any hope in sight. However I’m additionally right here to make the folks seeing this present snort, and to mirror it in a extra constructive manner … as a result of on the finish of the day, these ladies aren’t damaged.”

Charles nods, “Laughter is an incredible balm for the array of atrocities that we’re experiencing as a tradition.”