[music]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. This week, you can watch a critically acclaimed Broadway show from your couch. Right now, in its closing week, Jaja's African Hair Braiding is available via a live stream from the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. You can buy a ticket courtesy of the League of Live Stream Theater. The show closes this weekend with its final performance on Sunday, November 19th. The show reveals the joy and pain of the immigrant women who work at an African hair braiding salon in Harlem.

There's Miriam, who's from Sierra Leone, and is polite, friendly, and a little bit quiet, but we get to know her better when she has a heartfelt conversation with her customer, Jennifer, who's a little skittish at first, but comes around as she gets to know the women in the salon. She gets to know them, because she's asked for micro braids, so she's going to be there all day long. There's Marie, the prep school valedictorian, and daughter of Jaja, the salon owner who runs the shop. Marie is in charge for the day while her mother is off to City Hall to get married.

Marie tells everyone she's taking a gap year before heading to an Ivy League school, but that might not happen. There's Aminata, who has some man troubles. Ndidi, a bubbly braider renting a chair in the salon, who some clients prefer to the old guard, specifically, Bea. Bea is opinionated. Hers is correct, of course. She's been there a long time, and she makes sure everyone else knows it. With demanding clients coming and going, the play reveals how life can profoundly change minute by minute, and hour by hour.

New York Times Chief Theater critic, Jesse Green, said it was, "Full of treasurable moments." The Variety critic praised the play's ability to bring life to a seemingly mundane space. While the show was in previews, I had a chance to speak with playwright Jocelyn Bioh, director Whitney White, and actor Zenzi Williams who plays Bea. Jocelyn wrote in her playwright's note that she's had braids almost all of her life, dating back to when she was four, and she's been to all kinds of shops. Including shops behind bodegas, and fish markets. I began by asking her what she wanted to capture about the energy, and the rhythm of a day at a hair braiding shop.

Jocelyn Bioh: I think it's just such a unique shop. It's such a unique space for women, for Black women, for Africans. It really captures a rich tapestry of who we are. It's such a New York staple. I'm sure they exist all over the country, but for those of us who are born and raised in New York, we pass by these shops all of the time, and there's a myriad of people who come in and out, and I just really wanted to encapsulate what a unique, beautiful, crazy, silly, funny experience it is being in a hair braiding shop all day.

Alison Stewart: When you think about it being uniquely a New York salon, what is uniquely in New York about Jaja's Salon?

Jocelyn Bioh: There's a hustle and a vibe about our city, and all of that is imbued into all of the women in the play, whether they're actual braiders or customers. Even if they are braiders from another country, as you mentioned, they've taken on that New York hustle, spirit, and mentality, and how that all gets mixed into who they are as people that we meet in the play, I think is really unique. I just feel there's a rich cast of characters who always come into a hair braiding shop. I'll get my hair re-braided tomorrow, and I'm like, "Lord, who's going to be in there? What's going to be the vibe? Who even knows?"

That's always the deal every time I go get my hair braided. I really wanted to highlight that. I feel there's a lot of people who don't know anything about hair braiding shops. Maybe they've passed by these women on the street, maybe they've passed by the shops, maybe they live above one, who even knows, and they know very little about what even happens or the women who make up the community in the hair braiding shop. I wanted to honor them in my own little comedic way.

Alison Stewart: Whitney, we have a set that looks like a salon. There's red chairs, pink walls, TVs. As a director, what's an example of a conversation you had with one of your actors about how to move about the set, and really use the set to help the audience understand the character?

Whitney White: That's a beautiful question. I think the interesting thing about these spaces that these women inhabit is that they're lived-in spaces. They're not doing a five-hour workday. They're doing sometimes 10, 11, more hours. They really make these spaces their own. Each braiding station feels like a little spaceship, a little home. I remember in week one asking the women, all of the actors being like, "How can we really make this feel like our home?" We've been entrenched in this shop for not just one year, and not just one day, not just the hour and a half of the play, but for many, many years and many days.

I think we had a whole day where we just listened to music, the kind of music the women would listen to, and we just started placing the props ourselves, which is not typically the way that happens in the process. We touched all the objects together, and we started to have each individual woman grab things that she thought she needed, and some of those choices are still maintained in the production. You'll come see.

Alison Stewart: Bea. Let's talk about Bea. It's morning. It's a hot day in Harlem. The AC is wonky.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Bea, she gives off strong vibes from the jump. How would you describe where Bea is in her life when we meet her?

Zenzi Williams: Oh, I describe Bea as a seer. She sees all, and it's hard to be a seer sometimes, especially when there are so many things for her to keep up with at the same time. We meet her at a moment where she's navigating a new part of her life where she's getting less and less clients, and also her friend is getting married, and it's not something that she agrees with. We're watching her navigate this moment while also being a seer who knows she's right, and who likes being right. We watch her enjoy talking [laughs] quite a bit. She has a lot to talk about on this particular day.

Alison Stewart: The play takes place in the course of one day in one space. Why did you choose one day as opposed to a week in these women's lives, or a month in these women's lives?

Jocelyn Bioh: I think, because there's a lot that can happen in a day. I think about really magnificent days, and magnificent in not always the best way, and magnificent in sometimes the worst way is that I've woken up thinking the day was going to be one thing, and then by 9:00 PM it was a whole other thing, so there's that. I wanted to encapsulate that. Then there's also like, when you go to a hair braiding shop, you're like, "How many hours am I going to be here?" I do it every time.

I've gotten my hair braided probably hundreds of times, and I still am calculating, "If I start at 1:00, I may be here to whatever." I touch my hair to see how many braids are left, I try to calculate the hours. You are counting time all the time when you're in a shop, whether you're the braider or the person who's getting their hair braided. I thought that that was important to really highlight in this space. This is one particular space where time is money, time is important, and people want to get in and get out of--

Alison Stewart: That's not going to happen. [laughs]

Jocelyn Bioh: No, no, no.

Alison Stewart: It's one of the funniest moments is when this woman comes in and asks for micro braids and every woman in the shop turns around like she's busy.

Jocelyn Bioh: [laughs] I know.

Alison Stewart: Not me. Not me today. [laughs]

Jocelyn Bioh: I know. That stuff takes forever, but I've seen it. I've been there top of the day. Somebody comes in wanting a really intricate style like micro braids, and you just see the fall happen on all of everyone's faces.

[laughter]

Jocelyn Bioh: Like, "Man, this is the only money I'm going to make today." They do it, they still do it, and they obviously turn out beautifully every time.

Alison Stewart: We're talking about Jaja's African Hair Braiding. I'm speaking with Playwright Jocelyn Bioh, Director Whitney White, and Zenzi Williams, who plays Bea. Back to taking place in a day as a director, what's challenging about that for you, and then what was interesting to you?

Whitney White: That's a great question. I think what's challenging is trying to find a way to honestly check in what happens to us physiologically over the course of the day. When you wake up, you have your coffee, you have your breakfast. What's going on with you? What's your energy like versus what's your vibe at 12:00, and what's your vibe at 5:00, and then what's your vibe at 9:00? Getting us to arc that out, took a long time. I think we are working on it. We'll be working on it up until opening. What was really fun about that is, especially as New Yorkers, so much, like Jocelyn said, happens to us in a day.

You get on the subway, you go to your job, you see your loved one. New Yorkers, we live very full lives, and sometimes we don't always take stock of what time, what the currency of time really is. That's been fun for me in the show to really stop and think, what's it like for a woman to spend five hours on one task, and then you get to walk out, and you don't have to do your hair for two months? Time, and money, and how that equates to the Black female experience, and digging into that has been very fun and juicy for me.

Alison Stewart: What kind of research did you do, Zenzi, to play Bea?

Zenzi Williams: I watched all kinds of videos. Bea is from Ghana. I decided to choose a particular place within Ghana that she was from. I watched videos of that. There's a specific vlogger that I loved to listen to and watch just because I loved the way her dialect came out of her mouth. That was really interesting for me. I did a lot of reading about braiders. I also had my own experience being in a braid shop, so I definitely used that as well.

Also, I listened to a lot of music, I created a playlist for Bea. One song in particular was from Nina Simone called Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, and the lyrics of that feel like they are exactly what Bea is. Just a soul who's a really good soul, and she just doesn't want to be misunderstood. I just used all of that to create this beautiful woman whom I really love, actually.

Allison Stewart: Can you share a personal experience that's made it into the show or to Bea's character?

Zenzi Williams: Oh, a personal experience I've had in a braiding salon?

Allison Stewart: Yes, if you don't mind.

Zenzi Williams: I went to--

[laughter]

Zenzi Williams: I used to go get my hair braided on 125th Street, The Apollo Beauty Land, I think it's called, and they have a braid shop upstairs. I would get my hair braided by the senior braider in Apollo Beauty Land. Just the way she sat in a chair, the way she stood up, she changed an atmosphere. When she wasn't there, you could feel it, when she was there, you could feel it. [laughs] I feel like I actually use that. Just the gravity of this woman was so incredible to me every single time I saw her. I tapped into that part of myself, and I believe it's there. [laughs]

Allison Stewart: It is.

Zenzi Williams: She sparkles like a diamond.

Allison Stewart: Yes, sure. Jocelyn, it's also a workplace show as well as a workplace plot about how the women respond to customers, how they interact with each other. There's this subtext of a little bit of competition especially between Bea and Didi, where this seems some women are preferring the new braider in the shop. What is the subtext of that plot? On the surface, the competition, but there's a little bit of subtext there.

Jocelyn Bioh: Well, It's also pulled from true stories, ripped from the headlines that came my life, because I did go to a hair braid lady who I loved and I thought she was great, and she just wasn't doing the job well. I didn't know what to do, and so I decided to shift and try someone [laughs] as it says in the play, try someone new.

It just so happened that the new hair braiding lady that I was going to her shop was being renovated at the time, so she decided to rent a chair in my old shop. The way that all played out when I walked in [laughs] was really crazy. There's a very heightened version of that that I illustrate in the play. That is braids and making money like that. Who knows how much money Bea was making every single day that is now going away slowly and she's watching it go to the younger hotter braider who maybe knows how to do all the cool styles, and can do it really fast.

When we see in Didi, we see she has the most customers in her chair throughout the play. I wanted to highlight that, because of course, there's competition. It's a group of people who are all doing the same task, except people come in only preferring one person over the other or something like that, you have to highlight that in a workplace. There's competition in anything. Anywhere you work, anything you do, competition exists. Whether you are the one enacting that or are on the receiving end of it. It was important to put into the play, but it also is a great thing to mind for comedy.

Allison Stewart: Whitney, when you started to talk to your team about what each hair braider would wear and what they wear tells about them, what were some of those conversations like?

Whitney White: It all started with a strong desire that Jocelyn and I shared to create a real portrait of these people. These aren't fairytale characters. It's not a conceptual piece of theater that's re-imagining something like a Shakespeare. These are real women that you pass and they inhabit real spaces, so we wanted a portrait that reflected the collage of who they were and their humanity. There's not really another piece of theater that has this much continental diversity in the play, and that was very important.

These women are from Senegal, and Ghana, and Sierra Leone. They're all different generations. A big conversation with costumes, one desire was to get it right and make it a real portrait, but one desire was to really tell the continental story to show the intersection that these women lived at in terms of their heritage and also who they are and where they are in their generation. Some of them like in Didi feel very fresh. I call them new-new. They're on TikTok. Whereas, "Auntie Bea, what is TikTok?" You know what I mean?

Allison Stewart: Ellie, what is this TikTok nonsense?

Whitney White: I know. What is this TikTok nonsense? I want the costume right away, do you understand this woman's proximity to faith, traditional morality, culture, and Western culture? That was where the costume and hair dialogue circled.

Allison Stewart: Tell us about your costume. Tell us what you like about your costume, how your costume helps you become Bea's envy.

Zenzi Williams: That costume when I first put it on, it actually smelled like the scent of the African market, it's the Shabazz African market.

Allison Stewart: Yes, 116th.

Zenzi Williams: There is such a specific smell, and it is so good. It feels like home to me. It really does. I loved that about it first. I also just loved the fact that the embroidery reminded me of a woman I knew. My mother, my grandmother, they wore pieces like this. My mother used to wear pieces like that to church all the time. I just felt very at home in that costume, which always feels good to me to feel at home. Then of course the slippers. The slippers helped me create the walk and the gate of Bea and it automatically puts me there. That was such an amazing gift, that costume is a gift. Of course, that hair is everything.

Whitney White: I know. Wait a minute. That hair too.

Zenzi Williams: That wig is everything.

Whitney White: It really is.

Allison Stewart: I'm glad you did my transition. The hair. The wigs.

Whitney White: Let me tell you.

Allison Stewart: That's a little bit of magic.

Whitney White: It's Black Harry Potter.

Jocelyn Bioh: Yes. It's supposed to. It's supposed to feel like a magic trick. You're supposed to be like, "Okay, we know that every scene is a timestamp." We know that in the world of the play, three hours have passed. Except it, oh, it's only been 10 minutes. How did somebody get their hair braided that fast?" It should feel like magic. [laughs] I'm glad you had that experience.

Allison Stewart: I don't want you to give away all your tricks. Whitney, what is one thing that happens with terms of the wigs and the braiding and getting the braids done that you can share? I think it would be great for people to understand what techniques are needed to make this happen.

Whitney White: Well, I think I'll use the example that we talked about that is ripped from the headlines of Ms. Jocelyn Bioh's life of what happens when this customer comes in, who doesn't realize she's in the shop, and is betraying Bea, Bea's betrayal beat, I call it [laughs]. She's just coming in for some simple zigzags.

It's funny when you read it in the script, the character says, "I want some zigzag cornrows." I'll never forget the moment we had when we finally saw the hairpiece. It was this beautiful intricate zigzag that our brilliant designer, Nikiya Mathis had created. When I realized the power of the show. Anyways, this moment entails several things, because She comes in with one look like her street look, and over the course of the 12 minutes, she exists in the play. She goes from street look to partially done to a little bit more done to complete.

That takes a series of wig parts that are pre-styled pieces that you can let on or attach. Then the actor on stage actually braiding, because we worked with an incredible artist who gave us consultant time and taught us all how to braid. Well, not all of us, some of us could braid like Zenzi [laugh]. It was a mesh of pre-configured design and real action on stage that was all engineered by this brilliant woman, Nikiya Mathis.

Allison Stewart: Zenzi. You knew how to braid before.

Zenzi Williams: [laughs] Yes, I did. My mother taught me how to braid actually, and also just by watching. My aunt is also a hairstylist as well. It's years of watching and trying on dolls. Then when finally my sister has allowed me to do their hair [laughs] I was able to do that.

Allison Stewart: We're talking about Jaja as African hair braiding. I'm speaking with playwright Jocelyn Bioh, director Whitney White, and Zenzi Williams, who plays Bea. There's a lot of like "If you know, you know" in the show.

Zenzi Williams: Oh, yes.

Allison Stewart: [laughs] There are TVs all around, and the ladies play YouTube and they listen to Afrobeats, the Nollywood classics, and there's this one very popular meme from the Nigerian film Pretty Liars 1. I'm going to describe it and we're going to play it, where a woman is very melodramatically running away from a man in a car, and it sounds like this.

Speaker 2: Hey. Hey. Hey.

Speaker 3: Why are you running? Why are you running?

Alison Stewart: Why are you running? It's got a bajillion views on YouTube.

Whitney White: Iconic.

Jocelyn Bioh: Oh, so good.

Alison Stewart: What is a favorite if you know, you know moment? That's one's hilarious.

Jocelyn Bioh: Oh, wow. God, there's so many. I think we kick off it. I think we kick it off in the play with the micros, because not everybody knows what that is. They, of course, learn over the course of the play. I also love when that same customer asks her braider not to or to comb lightly, because she's a little tender-headed. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: That got a big laugh [unintelligible 00:20:57]

Jocelyn Bioh: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Do you have a favorite if you know, you know moment?

Zenzi Williams: Just the sheer gossip. We're just going to wait and then we're going to unleash the Kraken.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Whitney, how about you?

Whitney White: I don't want to give away one of my favorite entrances. There's a wonderful male actor in our ensemble, Michael, and he plays several male characters, and his first entrance, he plays the sock man. That is my, if you know, you know, because when you're sitting in those shops, the kind of vendors that come in and out give you such a special burst of culture and energy. I just love that moment in the show.

Alison Stewart: As you've been working, you said, "Oh, we're working things out in previews." What's something that you've had to massage and figure out?

Zenzi Williams: Oh, my gosh. Jocelyn Bioh is a comedic genius. I cannot say enough about the technical expertise and vision that she's laid out on the page, and that stuff take, it's like clockwork. I feel like I really had to revisit Martin In Living Color, and Lucille Ball, and Three Stooges, and who's on first and all these things. One thing we've had to iron out is the dialogue between what we need to do to do, [drum beat], and what you need to hear as an audience to take it in. That's a tightrope walk.

That's something we've been working on is listening to you guys, but not sacrificing the integrity of the comedy and speed at which the show has to go to maintain Jocelyn's vision. That's fine. It's a like a high-wire act.

Alison Stewart: Jocelyn, talking about walking the rope, because it's very, very funny, but you definitely touch on issues of immigration. You touch on issues of class, of Black Americans and first-generation African Americans, and that dynamic, and how it can be fraught. When you were thinking about when you wanted to bring in those- I don't want to say important beats, but those beats that are nuanced, and they're not necessarily funny, they're important.

Jocelyn Bioh: No, I always have a spoonful-of-sugar mentality when I'm writing and working on anything. I think it's important for people to discuss or walk out of a show thinking about something that they never thought about before, maybe recognizing an implicit bias that they had that they weren't as aware of. I knew I wanted to write a story about immigration. I wrote it in 2019. We were in a very different administration at that time.

There was a lot of conversation about immigration, and there was also only one face of immigration as well and I really wanted to highlight, there was a myriad of people and faces that belong to the immigration story in America. I think all of the comedy, all of the laughter, all of falling in love with all of the women over the course of the first 80 minutes of the play justifies the shift that we then take towards the end, which I won't give away. I think it's important that people take the medicine down, but have it with a little bit of sugar.

Alison Stewart: That was my conversation with playwright Jocelyn Bioh, director Whitney White, and Zenzi Williams who plays Bea in Jaja's African Hair Braiding, which is running through Sunday, November 19th at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, and is available for live stream as well.

 

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