Pointed 'JaJa' may give your preconceptions a twist
Three Bone Theatre’s 'JaJa’s African Hair Braiding' runs through Nov. 24 at The Arts Factory at West End Studios, 1545 W. Trade St.
This review by longtime Charlotte arts critic Lawrence Toppman was published by The Charlotte Ledger on Nov. 11, 2024. You can find out more about The Charlotte Ledger’s commitment to smart local news and information and sign up for our newsletter for free here. And check out this link for Toppman’s archive of reviews in the Ledger.
Timely and poignant, ‘JaJa's African Hair Braiding' by Three Bone Theatre invites its audience to examine the immigrant challenge outside of the salon
The comedic “JaJa’s African Hair Braiding” takes place in a Harlem hair salon. (Photo courtesy of Three Bone Theatre)
by Lawrence Toppman
Seeing “JaJa’s African Hair Braiding” at Three Bone Theatre would have been a different experience one week ago.
Jocelyn Bioh’s 2024 Tony nominee for best play would’ve struck me as a funny, thoughtful part of the national dialogue about when, how and whether immigrants to the United States might share in our national quest for economic prosperity. Now, with the president-elect babbling about mass deportations on day one of his reign, parts of it play more like a horror story.
The title has two meanings. It refers to the type of braiding done in JaJa’s Harlem shop over the last 10 years, as well as the four hairstylists who work there. Some have come here legally, some not, some under conditions that remain murky. Marie (fiery Deity Brinson), JaJa’s daughter, has become her high school’s valedictorian by passing herself off as Kelly, a cousin with proper documentation.
Through a day filled with good-natured teasing, sudden jealousies and causes for sadness and celebration, they wait for JaJa to make an appearance before her wedding to an unseen white man. That marriage will give her U.S. citizenship and, we assume, allow Marie to apply openly to Ivy League colleges.
Yet on the brink of triumph, JaJa (Myneesha King, eloquent in her small role) can’t help reflecting bitterly on past menial jobs. She has paid taxes for a decade and provided employment to a staff, yet she’s always in danger of being sent with Marie back to Senegal. When, she wonders, does the government want her to go: “After I have cleaned your house? After I have raised your children?”
That question hangs over the play, whose characters always feel an ICE-y wind at their backs. Yet there’s also plenty of joy at JaJa’s. Even grumpy Bea (Valerie Thames), whose painstakingly slow work has started to lose her customers to the defter Ndidi (Sarah Oguntomilade), gets into the literal swing of things in a dancing moment.
The play lasts just 95 intermission-free minutes, so we don’t get to know as much as we’d like about the stylists. All we know about Aminata (Vanessa Robinson), for instance, is that she loudly tells off her philandering husband until he walks through the door, when she succumbs to his blandishments. (Kudos to Graham Williams, who differentiates all of his small roles — insinuating, empathetic, silly, endearing — as the lone male in the show.)
Thames, Robinson and Oguntomilade put their characters across mostly by strength of personality. But Kellie Williams has a juicy role as Miriam, whose happiness may lie back in Sierra Leone with the pop singer who fathered her daughter, and she wins our affection.
Three Bone’s space at the Arts Factory has often seemed awkwardly cramped. This time, it’s the right size for a storefront business, with chairs on two levels and a storeroom in the back, and director Donna Bradby makes shrewd use of it. I wish she hadn’t permitted some actors in minor roles to overact, but she helped the leads calibrate their performances to fit the room.
Of course, your reaction to this narrative will probably depend on your feelings about immigration. As the grandson of a Ukrainian immigrant, who might not have been admitted in 2025, I sympathize with working women struggling to stay on the right side of legal legitimacy. I don’t think “JaJa’s African Hair Braiding” will change any minds, but it might open a few.
If You’re Going: Three Bone Theatre’s “JaJa’s African Hair Braiding” runs at The Arts Factory at West End Studios, 1545 W. Trade St., through Nov. 24, with performances at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday.
Three Bone always pairs with an organization related to the issues raised by a show; this time, it joins Carolina Refugee Resettlement Agency. If you think refugees deserve a hand up, especially when they’re less likely than ever to get one from the government, check that agency out.
Lawrence Toppman covered the arts for 40 years at The Charlotte Observer before retiring in 2020. Now, he’s back in the critic’s chair for the Charlotte Ledger — look for his reviews about two times each month in the Charlotte Ledger.
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