Kinship, caring and the American dream in Jocelyn Bioh's 'Jaja's African Hair Braiding'

Now on stage at La Jolla Playhouse is the play "Jaja's African Hair Braiding," by New York-based playwright Jocelyn Bioh. The play opened on Broadway in 2023, and was nominated for six Tony Awards — winning two.

The story takes place in a West African hair braiding salon in Harlem, New York City, a neighborhood storied and celebrated for its rich African American heritage, culture and history.

Courtesy of La Jolla Playhouse

Jaja is about to get married, in what the sisterhood of customers and hair braiders in the salon assumes is a green card wedding. At the heart of the story is the relationship between these women, and Jaja's daughter, Marie, who is about to graduate high school.

Bioh wants the lives of hair braiders to feel familiar and relatable. "There's a universality to the workplace that we all kind of know and share and understand. I think I'm just putting those relationships, those ideas, those people in a setting that we've never really seen before and that maybe — unless you've, you know, lived in New York or lived in Harlem or frequent hair braiding shops as much as I do — you think it may be different in there, that it may not feel the same," Bioh said. "And I think a lot of times audiences walk out feeling a real kinship with the women, with the shop, and a kind of universality about what a workplace setting — an intimate workplace setting — is like."

Interview highlights

On the importance of hair braiding salons

We didn't grow up with a lot of money, and I certainly didn't have a lot of time to worry about my hair. So, going to get my hair braided in a style that could last for a couple of months was economically really smart for me and my family. So these places kind of became like a second home to me because I was there so often. I still am there so often.

Most of the women who own these shops are also West African immigrant hair braiders themselves, who have come to this country. They're entrepreneurs looking to start their own business, have something of their own. I mean for anybody — much less, you know, the average American — that takes a lot of work to start your own business and hope that it's successful, especially in a city like New York.

I think these spaces are just also important for the communities too. Oftentimes a lot of the African hair braiding shops that exist are in Black and brown communities, places that probably have families who are similar to mine, who need to have some sort of economic decision about their hair. And the vulnerability that also is involved with that as well, you know, going in there and trusting someone to do a style that will work, that you like. You develop these relationships with these women as well.

It's a very vibrant space, and I always have a story. I always have a story every time I leave a hair braiding shop. Even if it seems pretty innocuous, those little moments I think are part of the fabric of what I think makes the play so unique and special and fun.

On the universality of connections and sisterhood

I don't know that it's more significant than any average workplace. I mean, what constitutes any of us to be in an office or a school or, you know, a hospital, any place where you're kind of working in community with a bunch of people for hours and hours and hours on end? Some people you like, some people you don't. Some people become your best friends, some people you hope they quit and you never see them again. I mean it's all of those things.

On green card weddings and the American dream

I think I pose a really interesting question in the play of whether Jaja's marriage to Steven is solely transactional just for a green card, or if there's actually really love there. And I think that's really important because, me being the child of immigrants myself — both my parents are from Ghana and West Africa — I have seen and heard and, you know, even attended weddings that had these same kinds of question marks.

But at the end of the day, I do feel like, by and large, every immigrant who comes to this country is in search of comeuppance, of a better life that they maybe feel like they can't quite have in wherever their country of origin is. And there's just a lot of red tape that becoming an American citizen, at least, makes you really cut through.

I wanted to humanize the people behind the policy. I think oftentimes we just kind of paint immigration with such a singular narrative, and it's more complex than that. And I think showing Jaja's relationship, showing all of the women — and some of them sharing their stories of even how they got to this country and even became citizens — I'm just trying to highlight the complexities that exist within that. And I hope if people walk in with some implicit biases about that, that maybe they shift a little bit when they leave.

On new motherhood and writing mothers

I became a mom so early in the process of writing, of the play getting produced in the original production on Broadway. When I started rehearsals, my child was only six weeks old. So, I think I was, in some cases, just trying to make sure I was getting enough sleep.

But in other ways I really understood — in a visceral way — sacrifice and caring and understanding and just putting everything to the side so that way everything with my kid came first. And so I really, really understood Jaja's perspective on things. Like, there's a world where maybe some of her actions and decisions could come off as selfish, but ultimately she really is doing what she can for the sake of her daughter and their future. I don't think you have to be a mom to understand that, but I feel like I did — in a different way — when I became a mom.

On humor

There's a quote I read when I was in grad school that has kind of become my thesis statement, which is: "Comedy is just a funny way of being serious." I've really come to understand that, the older I've gotten and the more work I've written.

It's really just about sharing a truth. I feel like comedy and humor is important because of that spoonful-of-sugar mentality. I think you can really invite a lot of people to the party and the music may be different, the vibe may be different — even the way somebody's getting the story could be different — but it really ends up being a very powerful tool to endear people to — especially to what I'm doing, endear people to characters that we don't always see. I mean, there's so much about Africa and African culture and African immigrants even that is not mainstream in any way. I think even a lot of times some people hear an African dialect and don't even realize that they're kind of trained for the story to inherently be sad.

And I understand that, because there's so much of the narrative of so many African countries that did struggle and did have post-colonial strife, whether it was war or disease or famine or anything like that. But that's not the truth of everybody on the continent. And I think using humor to tell African stories in a lot of ways feels radical — even though I just think the truly short answer is just that's naturally where my voice lives.

On taking the play out of New York

So the challenge I think of taking the story out of New York is that you do run the risk of communities maybe not knowing or understanding the story as well. There's always a concern that if there's no community there, will people understand it? Will people connect to it? Will it feel so foreign to them that they just kind of dismiss it? But ultimately, I do feel like whenever you do hone into a really, really, really unique specificity, it does unlock this huge universality and so I try not to worry about that.

I think I'm always just excited when another production of my play is happening anywhere in the country because I recall a time where I couldn't even get anybody to read my plays, much less get them produced. I mean, it's a thing about being a playwright or a filmmaker or TV writer. These are mediums where you write something that's intended to be produced in some way. You know, this is not like writing a novel or an essay or an article that will be consumed by a reader and that's it, and then they move on with their lives. All the intent of writing a play is for it to actually be performed. And it's hard, it's really hard to get people to care enough about your work, to want to invest thousands, sometimes millions of dollars to get your play produced — and also have the faith that the audiences at any theater will be excited to take it in and enjoy it.

So at a base level, I'm just mostly excited that it's being done. I know what it was like when no one cared, and it's really cool that people care. It's really cool that people want to buy a ticket and see your show. That will never get old for me.