this week in broadway

THE NOTEBOOK: THE MUSICAL

Teens Allie (Jordan Tyson) and Noah (John Cardoza) fall in love in The Notebook (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

THE NOTEBOOK
Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre
236 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 7, $74-$298
notebookmusical.com

“I don’t think there was any way I could have imagined that it would become as successful as it did. It’s like catching lightning in a bottle,” former pharmaceutical salesman Nicholas Sparks told Show Daily about his blockbuster debut novel, 1996’s The Notebook, which was lifted out of a literary agency slush pile. The tearjerker spent more than a year on the bestseller list, though it never reached number one. It caught lightning in a bottle again in 2004, when it was adapted into a hugely successful film, directed by Nick Cassavetes and starring Ryan Gosling, James Garner, Rachel McAdams, Gena Rowlands (Nick’s mom), Joan Allen, James Marsden, and Sam Shepard.

The novel and film had plenty of naysayers, decrying it as sentimental claptrap; the movie is certified Rotten on Rotten Tomatoes, but it won eight Teen Choice Awards as well as Best Kiss at the MTV Movie Awards. It knows its audience. (For the record, I have not read the book nor seen the film.)

The third time is unlikely to be the charm for the haters out there, as The Notebook is now a Broadway musical, running at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre through July 7. If this iteration is a hit, it won’t be because of quality, which it is sadly lacking.

The show features underwhelming music and lyrics by American singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson and a tepid book by Bekah Brunstetter, who has written such plays as The Cake and Oohrah! and was a writer, story editor, and Emmy-nominated producer on This Is Us. Incorporating elements from both the novel and the film, the narrative moves between 1967, 1977, and 2021 in an unnamed mid-Atlantic town.

John Cardoza, Dorian Harewood, and Ryan Vasquez portray the same character at three different times in The Notebook (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

It opens with an older man watching two teenagers meet and fall instantly in love. “Time to get up, time to get up now / And let the bones crack into place / I look in the mirror, I see an old man / But in my eyes, a young man’s face,” the old man sings. “Time, time time time / It never was mine, / mine mine mine / But you know what is? / Love, hope, breath, and dreams / As cliché as that seems.” Cliché becomes a kind of leitmotif throughout the show’s 140 minutes (with intermission).

In 2021, Noah (Dorian Harewood) is in an extended caregiving facility reading from a handwritten notebook to Allie (Maryann Plunkett), whose dementia is worsening. As he reads, scenes from the notebook are acted out onstage by the teenage Allie (Jordan Tyson) and Noah (John Cardoza) in 1967 and the twentysomething Allie (Joy Woods) and Noah (Ryan Vasquez) ten years later.

The plot is the classic hardworking tough guy meets rich girl, rich girl’s parents (Andréa Burns and Dorcas Leung) break them apart, boy joins the army with his best friend (Carson Stewart), girl finds a respectable lawyer (Chase Del Rey) to marry, boy and girl imagine what might have happened had they stayed together. The older Noah believes that by telling the story to Allie over and over again, it might help her regain at least some of her memories, while the nurse (Burns) insists Noah follows the rules and his physical therapist (Stewart) tries to get him to get treatment for his ailing knee, but Noah has more important things on his mind.

The narrative goes back and forth in time, occasionally with some Allies and Noahs watching the others. Diverse, race-blind casting is one of the best things to happen to Broadway in recent years, but The Notebook takes it to new, confusing levels. The three Noahs and the three Allies are different sizes, different heights, and different colors. Tyson and Cardoza lack the necessary chemistry to kick things off; Woods and Vasquez have more passion, but the story keeps their characters apart for too long. By the time you figure out what is happening with the older Noah and Allie, it’s too late, although there are a few touching moments between them near the end, and the handling of the painting is the most successful part of the show.

Maryann Plunkett, Joy Woods, and Jordan Tyson portray the same character at three different times in The Notebook (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Codirectors Michael Greif (Dear Evan Hansen, Next to Normal) and Schele Williams (Aida, The Wiz) are unable to rein in the overall befuddlement on David Zinn and Brett J. Banakis’s rustic set, which switches from a nursing home to a historic house that needs significant work; there’s also a pool of water in the front of the stage where Allie and Noah swim and play. When boredom sets in, you can check out Ben Stanton’s lighting design, which features dozens of narrow, cylindrical, fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling with bulbs at the bottom that make them look like big pens (that one might, say, use to write in a notebook?). The lighting also casts a cool shimmer when it focuses on the pool.

The score, with arrangements by Michaelson and music supervisor Carmel Dean and orchestrations by Dean and John Clancy, can’t keep pace with the narrative, slowing it down dramatically. When teenage Allie asks teenage Noah if he has a pen and he says, “Why would I have a pen?,” I pointed up at the lights. When Middle Noah sings, “Leave the Light On,” I suddenly felt as if I were in a Motel 6 advertisement. And when the young Allie and Noah sing about his chest hair — twice — but Cardoza doesn’t have any, I wondered if it was meant to be a tongue-in-cheek joke. (If it was, it didn’t draw laughs.)

It’s a treat to see Tony winner Plunkett (Agnes of God, Me and My Gal) and Emmy nominee and NAACP Image Award winner Harewood (Streamers, Jesus Christ Superstar), and Woods (Six, Little Shop of Horrors) nearly steals the show with her solo turn in “My Days”; when she sings, “Where am I going,” I could only think that she has a big future ahead of her.

The musical probably has a big future ahead of itself too, naysayers be damned.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY: DOUBT: A PARABLE / BROOKLYN LAUNDRY

Sister Aloysius (Amy Ryan), Sister James (Zoe Kazan), and Father Flynn (Liev Schreiber) have a serious talk in Doubt (photo by Joan Marcus)

DOUBT: A PARABLE
Todd Haimes Theatre
227 West Forty-Second St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 14, $68-$344
212-539-8500
www.roundabouttheatre.org

“What do you do when you’re not sure? That’s the topic of my sermon today. You look for God’s direction and can’t find it,” Father Flynn (Liev Schreiber) says at the beginning of the first Broadway revival of John Patrick Shanley’s 2004 Pulitzer- and Tony-winning Doubt: A Parable. “Doubt can be a bond as powerful and sustaining as certainty. When you are lost, you are not alone.”

Shanley has two plays running concurrently in New York City, both dealing with doubt and certainty. Roundabout’s production of Doubt has been extended at the Todd Haimes Theatre through April 21, while Manhattan Theatre Club’s world premiere of Brooklyn Laundry has been extended at City Center through April 14. (A sold-out revival of Shanley’s 1983 two-character Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, starring Christopher Abbott and Aubrey Plaza, completed a limited run at the Lucille Lortel in January; it covered some of the same themes as the other two.)

Doubt and Brooklyn Laundry both feature four characters, rotating sets, high-powered performances, real-life inspiration, and, with just a few exceptions, a series of scenes between two characters. But while the former flows seamlessly as the plot unfolds, the latter is bumpy and much less structured.

Doubt takes place in St. Nicholas Church in the Bronx in 1964, during the Second Vatican Council, which sought to update Catholicism in response to the modern world, moving away from scholasticism and centuries-old doctrine and theology toward new ways of relating to lay people, priests, and nuns. Not everyone was on board, and some still aren’t sixty years later.

Father Flynn (Liev Schreiber) shares a moment with Sister James (Zoe Kazan) in the church garden (photo by Joan Marcus)

The school is run by the hard-nosed, impossibly strict principal Sister Aloysius (Amy Ryan), a member of the Sisters of Charity, who has no time for art, music, dancing, ballpoint pens, Frosty the Snowman, Father Flynn’s long fingernails, or the monsignor, who she thinks is oblivious. She believes that “satisfaction is a vice” and “innocence is a form of laziness.” When young teacher Sister James (Zoe Kazan) stops by her office, Sister Aloysius starts drilling her on classroom methods, claiming she’s too lenient with her students. She wants her to pay more attention but won’t say exactly what Sister James should be looking for. “I must be careful not to create something by saying it. I can only say I am concerned, perhaps needlessly, about matters in St. Nicholas School,” the older nun says with suspicion.

Later, in the church garden, Sister Aloysius asks about Donald Muller, the first Black student in the school; she is sure that Donald, an altar boy, will get bullied, but when Sister James points out that Father Flynn has taken him under his wing, Sister Aloysius immediately tightens up. “So it’s happened,” she says, as if she has been waiting for this moment.

She learns that Father Flynn had a private talk with Donald in the rectory. Later, in her office, she demands that Father Flynn tell her what happened. The priest refuses, arguing that it was a sensitive, personal matter while understanding exactly what the principal is accusing him of without her saying it out loud. When he is eventually forced to talk about it, he explains that he was only protecting the child and did nothing wrong. That’s not enough for Sister Aloysius, who still suspects him; he storms out, and she tells Sister James, who believes the father, “These types of people are clever. They’re not so easily undone. . . . I’ll bring him down. With or without your help.”

What follows is a tense cat-and-mouse game between the principal and the priest; Sister Aloysius even calls in Donald’s mother (Quincy Tyler Bernstine), who shocks her with her response to learning that her son might be in danger from a predatory priest.

Sister Aloysius (Amy Ryan) has some harsh words for Mrs. Muller (Quincy Tyler Bernstine) in Broadway revival of Doubt (photo by Joan Marcus)

Doubt debuted on Broadway in 2004, with Brían F. O’Byrne as Father Flynn, Cherry Jones as Sister Aloysius, Heather Goldenhersh as Sister James, and Adriane Lenox as Mrs. Muller; all four cast members received Tony nominations, with Jones and Lenox winning, along with awards for Best Play and Best Director (Doug Hughes). In 2008, Shanley adapted the play into a feature film, with Philip Seymour Hoffman as Father Flynn, Meryl Streep as Sister Aloysius, Amy Adams as Sister James, and Viola Davis as Mrs. Muller, all of whom were nominated for Oscars, along with Shanley’s adapted screenplay, which expanded the story to include more than fifty roles.

Director Scott Ellis (Take Me Out, The Assembled Parties) masterfully directs the ninety-minute play, never letting the tension break as the audience wonders whether Father Flynn actually abused Donald. The story was partly inspired by Shanley learning years later that his high school mentor was a sexual predator, as well as his deep respect for nuns. Except for one scene between the two sisters and the father, all the others feature two characters talking about intolerance, faith, gossip, love, God, and what, or who, to believe.

David Rockwell’s sets move between Sister Aloysius’s austere office and the garden, with a projection in the back of buildings next to the church. Everything disappears and windows drop from above when Father Flynn delivers his homilies. Linda Cho’s costumes are primarily dark habits and vestments. Kenneth Posner’s lighting and Mikaal Sulaiman’s sound maintain the eery, mysterious feeling of impending doom.

Bernstine (The Amateurs, Our Lady of 121st Street) is powerful as Mrs. Muller, who is not afraid to make her unique point of view known, and Kazan (Love, Love, Love; A Behanding in Spokane) is wonderful as the doe-eyed innocent who is in over her head.

Two-time Tony nominee Ryan (Love, Love, Love; A Streetcar Named Desire) is almost unrecognizable as Sister Aloysius, the cagey principal who trusts no one except God. She portrays her as diamond-hard, a cold, steely woman without kindness or compassion but she’s not quite a villain, although you’d have to look hard to find a soft spot; you hope she is wrong about Father Flynn not only because he is a more relatable person but because you want her not to win. (Or do you?) Schreiber (Les Liaisons Dangereuses, A View from the Bridge) is utterly brilliant as her prey, his eyes mesmerizing, his gestures works of art; he is almost otherworldly when giving his sermons, then down to earth when teaching the boys basketball.

“Now, the thing about shooting from the foul line: It’s psychological,” Father Flynn explains. “The rest of the game you’re cooperating with your teammates, you’re competing against the other team. But at the foul line, it’s you against yourself. And the danger is: You start to think.”

He’s talking about a lot more than basketball.

Owen (David Zayas) and Fran (Cecily Strong) take stock of their lives in Brooklyn Laundry (photo by Jeremy Daniel)

BROOKLYN LAUNDRY
Manhattan Theatre Club
MTC at New York City Center – Stage I
Tuesday – Sunday through April 14, $119-$129
212-581-1212
www.manhattantheatreclub.com

“You believe in God?” Fran Costello (Cecily Strong) asks Owen (David Zayas) shortly after meeting him.

“Yeah, why not? You want your dry cleaning?” he responds.

Inspired by having his clothes lost by a local laundromat, John Patrick Shanley’s Brooklyn Laundry is a slight but enjoyable seventy-five-minute trip into a quartet of people facing turning points in their lives. Fran is a cynical thirty-seven-year-old office worker, the youngest of three siblings; her sister Trish (Florencia Lozano) lives in a hospice trailer in Pennsylvania with her two young kids, her ex-husband in jail; her sister Susie (Andrea Syglowski), who lives with her husband and their six-year-old son in the city, is the responsible one; and the fiftyish Owen owns three laundries and hasn’t been with a woman since his fiancée left him two years before.

It’s not exactly love at first sight for Fran and Owen when she comes in to drop off a bag of laundry, where she has a credit because they lost her laundry six months ago. “You’re like my fiancée was,” he says. “She’s . . . ?” Fran begins. “Gone. She was like you. Smart, one inch from terrific, but gloomy,” he continues. She answers, “I don’t think I’m gloomy. I think what I’m suffering from is reality.” Owen: “Some folks look life in the mouth.” Fran: “You’re not one of those people who think I’m manifesting, are you?”

He asks her on a date, and she reluctantly agrees. “Why would you want to have dinner with a person who’s in the middle of an episode?” she asks. He responds, “I don’t know. Everybody has a bad day.”

Fran goes out with Owen and meets up with Trish in Pennsylvania and Susie in Brooklyn as she takes stock of her sad, lonely life; her problems are not about to just come out in the wash.

Susie (Andrea Syglowski) and Fran (Cecily Strong) have a family squabble in John Patrick Shanley world premiere for MTC (photo by Jeremy Daniel)

The concept of sleep is an underlying theme of the play. At one point, Susie says to Fran, “It’s a wake-up call,” and Fran responds, “Was I asleep?” Sleep is brought up by all four characters, which harkens back to Doubt. “Oh. I can’t sleep,” Sister Aloysius tells Father Flynn, who asks, “Why not?” The nun says, “Bad dreams. Actually one bad dream and then I haven’t slept right since.” Later, she says to Sister James, “Maybe we’re not supposed to sleep so well.”

Santo Loquasto’s set rotates from Owen’s laundry, which appears to be fully operational, chugging away as the audience enters, to the bedroom in Trish’s trailer, Fran’s studio apartment, and the restaurant where Fran and Owen go to dinner. Suzy Benzinger’s costumes are naturalistic, Brian MacDevitt’s lighting is sharp, particularly in the dinner scene, and John Gromada’s original music and sound maintain the mood, along with Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road.”

All four actors are exceptional; Lozano (Placebo, One Wet Brain) imbues the dying Trish with a keen sense of humor, Syglowski (Dig, Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven) brings humanity to the angry and frustrated Susie, Strong (The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, Schmigadoon!) empowers Fran through all her awkwardness, and Zayas (Cost of Living, Anna in the Tropics) proves once again why he’s one of the best around, portraying the unpredictable and frightfully honest Owen with charm to spare.

Written and directed by Oscar, Tony, and Obie winner and Emmy nominee Shanley (Outside Mullingar, Prodigal Son), Brooklyn Laundry contains unexpected dialogue with clever undertones. When Owen tells Fran she can keep a quarter that fell on the floor, she says she doesn’t want it, so he asks, “What? You afraid of a little change?” Trish loves the artificial flowers she’s had for twenty years. “You can wash them. They never fade,” she says, as opposed to clothing, or people. When Owen and Fran are at dinner, she is upset that chicken is not on the menu, so he urges her, “This is exactly when reality becomes super important. You must choose from what exists on the menu, Fran, and not choose the invisible thing in your mind.”

However, each scene seems to exist in its own mind; they never come together as a whole, unfolding like loosely connected stories with chapters missing.

“What do you do when you’re not sure?” Father Flynn asks in Doubt, a nearly perfectly executed drama. Meanwhile, Brooklyn Laundry feels unsure of itself, unable to sleep well.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

PRAYER FOR THE FRENCH REPUBLIC / APPROPRIATE

Patrick (Anthony Edwards) watches his family in Joshua Harmon’s Prayer for the French Republic on Broadway (photo by Jeremy Daniel)

PRAYER FOR THE FRENCH REPUBLIC
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West Forty-Seventh St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 3, $94-$318
www.manhattantheatreclub.com

Success off Broadway is no guarantee of a hit on Broadway. Transferring to a bigger house, the passing of time, tweaking the script, cast changes, and sociopolitical events can all have an impact on a play or musical moving to the Great White Way.

While such shows as Hamilton, The Humans, Fun Home, Sweat, Fat Ham, and Into the Woods were sensational on and off Broadway, others ran into trouble.

Girl from the North Country was inspired at the Public but felt stale at the Belasco. Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf was electrifying at the Public but was completely reimagined at the Booth, and not for the better. Slave Play was provocative at New York Theatre Workshop but lost its power at the Golden. At Playwrights Horizons in 2018, Larissa FastHorse’s The Thanksgiving Play was a brilliant farce, but five years later at the Helen Hayes, with a new cast and creative team, it was dry and disappointing, like overheated leftovers.

Molly (Molly Ranson) and Elodie (Francis Benhamou) argue about Israel in Prayer for the French Republic (photo by Jeremy Daniel)

I loved Prayer for the French Republic when it debuted at MTC at New York City Center, but two years later, it doesn’t feel as sharp and incisive at the Samuel J. Friedman, and I’ve been scratching my head to try to figure out why. Joshua Harmon’s play is still an impressive piece of work, but it doesn’t have the same power now that it had then. It was named Outstanding Play at the 2022 Drama Desk Awards, receiving my vote, but I wouldn’t have voted for this current version.

The story takes place in Paris in 1944–46 and 2016–17, following the trials and tribulations of the Salomon family, who have been making pianos since 1855. During WWII, Irma and Adolphe choose to remain in France as they worry about the fate of their children. In contemporary times, their descendants face a vicious antisemitism that forces them to question whether they have to leave their home. The script and the creative team are essentially the same, including the director, David Cromer, who guided The Band’s Visit to a slew of awards both on and off Broadway. Only five of the eleven cast members are back, so that could be part of the issue. One is notably stronger than his predecessor, but another sadly falters in a key role.

However, the scintillating scene between Elodie and her distant cousin Molly as they argue about Israel is played by the same actors on the same set, yet it fails to ignite as it previously did. I think it was more than just moving to a bigger venue; the events of October 7 and the aftermath involving Hamas’s terrorist attack and Israel’s military response have impacted everyone’s views of the Middle East. The glue that held the off-Broadway show together was Rich Topol as Patrick, the Salomon brother who also serves as narrator and who has a different view of Judaism than the rest of his family. Notably, Topol just finished a run as a Jew who leaves Poland shortly before a brutal 1941 pogrom in Igor Golyak’s poignant and inventive adaptation of Tadeusz Słobodzianek’s Our Class, which is filled with a frightening sense of urgency.

Two previous Harmon shows — Significant Other and Bad Jews — were just as good, if not better, when they transferred to bigger venues; Prayer is a conundrum.

Three siblings battle over their family’s legacy in Appropriate (photo by Joan Marcus)

APPROPRIATE
Helen Hayes Theater
240 West 44th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 3, $209-$269
Moving to the Belasco Theatre March 25 – June 23, $79-$318
2st.com

Ten years ago, I saw Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Appropriate at the Signature. The play is about three siblings of the white Lafayette family who have returned to the clan’s dilapidated southern plantation to sell it to pay off debts following the death of their father. The siblings are not very close — youngest brother Franz has not been heard from in a decade — but their relationships are further strained when a home-made book of photographs of lynched black men is found in the house. The possibility that their father was a racist infuriates Toni, who cared for the ailing patriarch, and she becomes even more incensed when her Jewish sister-in-law, Rachael, who is married to Bo, claims that he was antisemitic as well.

The Signature show was directed by Liesl Tommy and starred Johanna Day, Michael Laurence, and Maddie Corman as the siblings. In 2014, I wrote, “Appropriate begins with solid character development while raising intriguing social and moral issues without getting didactic. But the story goes off the rails in the second act as various secrets emerge and the vitriol reaches even higher levels. Perhaps most unfortunate, there’s a moment that seems like the perfect ending; the lights go out, and just as the audience is ready to applaud, the play continues through a disappointing, unnecessary coda. Jacobs-Jenkins clutters what is a fascinating premise with too many disparate elements.”

I still feel the same about the ending, even with an insightful added finale, but everything else about the play, at the Helen Hayes through March 3 before moving to the Belasco for three more months, is better this time around. Jacobs-Jenkins (The Comeuppance, An Octoroon), a relentless reviser, has improved the script immensely, with dialogue that hits harder and deeper. Director Lila Neugebauer grabs hold of the complex plot and never lets go; the confrontations among the siblings, their significant others, and the next generation are scintillating; at times it’s so severe and merciless, so intimate, that you feel guilty for watching it unfold but you can’t look away for a second.

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Appropriate is reborn on Broadway (photo by Joan Marcus)

Sarah Paulson is a force of nature as Toni, an embittered woman with deep scars and no filter, exploding with vitriolic accusations she will never be able to take back. Corey Stoll goes toe-to-toe with her as Bo, who is having financial difficulties that may be affecting his ethics, while Natalie Gold is tough as nails as Rachael, who is not afraid to get in the ring with them. Michael Esper imbues Franz with a gentleness that belies the character’s past, while his younger girlfriend, a flower child named River played sweetly by Elle Fanning, stands firmly by his side. And the set, by dots, becomes more of an integral element, both what’s inside and lurking outside.

The Broadway production of Appropriate, the title of which has several different meanings and pronunciations, feels both of its time and timeless, an intense tale about the Black experience in America that has no people of color in its cast. A lot has changed in the world since 2014: Barack Obama finished his second term, followed by Donald Trump, both having defeated Hillary Clinton, the former in the primary, the latter in the general. The police killing of George Floyd led to the Black Lives Matter protests and a reckoning with this country’s shameful legacy of slavery and racism. And antisemitism is again on the rise, with October 7 only making it worse.

This vital new adaptation of Appropriate captures all of that and more in unforgettable ways.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

THEATER COMINGS AND GOINGS

Leslie Odom Jr. stars as the title character in the prescient and uproarious Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch (photo by Marc J. Franklin)

PURLIE VICTORIOUS: A NON-CONFEDERATE ROMP THROUGH THE COTTON PATCH
Music Box Theatre
239 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Wednesday – Sunday through February 4, $58 – $298
purlievictorious.com

Kenny Leon’s revival of Ossie Davis’s Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch was already a special experience; they’re now upping the ante with a series of talkbacks as the show heads into its final weeks at the Music Box Theatre.

The original premiered on Broadway in 1961, with a cast that included Davis as fast-talking preacher-dreamer Purlie Victorious Judson, Ruby Dee as Lutiebell Gussie Mae Jenkins, Sorrell Booke as cotton plantation owner Ol’ Cap’n (Stonewall Jackson) Cotchipee, Alan Alda as his ne’-er-do-well son, Charley, Tony-nominated Godfrey Cambridge as obedient servant Gitlow Judson, Helen Martin as his wife, Aunt Missy, who runs the house, and Beah Richards as Idella Landy, who watches out for Charley.

Leon has assembled another ace cast for his sparkling adaptation, a prescient play so funny and on point that you’ll be wondering why you haven’t heard about it before — although some will recall the 1970 musical version, Purlie, which featured Cleavon Little as Purlie and Melba Moore as Lutiebell. Leslie Odom Jr. is phenomenal as the title character, who wants to pretend that Lutiebell (a scene-stealing Kara Young) is his cousin Bee so she can collect her late mother’s $500 inheritance from Ol’ Cap’n (Jay O. Sanders) and Purlie can reclaim Big Bethel as his church. Missy (Heather Alicia Simms) is highly suspicious of the plan, while Gitlow (Billy Eugene Jones) doesn’t want to get involved in anything that might upset Ol’ Cap’n. When Charley (Noah Robbins) goes missing, Idella (Vanessa Bell Calloway) is beside herself, but Purlie isn’t about to let anything get in the way of his acquisition of Big Bethel. Meanwhile, Derek McLane’s evolving sets are so fabulous that the last one draws gasps of approval and applause from the audience.

“There’s a whole lotta things about the Negro question you ain’t thought of!” Purlie proclaims to Lutiebell. “The South is split like a fat man’s underwear; and somebody beside the Supreme Court has got to make a stand for the everlasting glory of our people!”

Purlie Victorious must close on February 4; they’ve added a series of “Victorious Talkbacks” that began January 11 with Adrienne Warren and continues January 18 with Moore and January 25 with Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Andrew Rannells and Josh Gad team up again in Gutenberg! The Musical! (photo by Matthew Murphy)

GUTENBERG! THE MUSICAL!
James Earl Jones Theatre
138 West Forty-Eighth St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 28, $74-$498
gutenbergbway.com

Lightning doesn’t strike twice for Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells, who first teamed up for the nonstop juggernaut The Book of Mormon in 2011, both earning Tony nominations. The dynamic duo is back in the double-exclamation-pointed Gutenberg! The Musical!, which are two bangs too many. It’s scheduled to close January 28.

Written by Scott Brown and Anthony King, the two-act version premiered off Broadway in 2006 with three-time Tony nominee Christopher Fitzgerald and Obie winner and Tony nominee Jeremy Shamos. In this new iteration of the meta-musical, Bud Davenport (Gad) and Doug Simon (Rannells), both from Nutley, New Jersey, have rented the James Earl Jones Theatre for one night to present their show, a musical about fifteenth-century German printer Johann Gutenberg, to a group of producers. They play all the characters, identifying them by putting on different hats, which say “Drunk #1,” “Helvetica,” “Bootblack,” “Trimmer,” and “Gutenberg,” among others.

Directed by Tony winner Alex Timbers, it starts out very funny, particularly as they discuss how they are including a serious issue in order to make sure the show is important — antisemitism — but as the story continues, it gets repetitive, going around in circles (literally and figuratively) as Bud and Doug keep interrupting the musical-within-a-musical to explain what they are doing, and why. The 2006 production was one act and forty-five minutes, and that feels about right; at two acts and two hours, it drags like a Saturday Night Live sketch that doesn’t know when to end.

The night I went, the best moment came when a woman from the audience shouted out to Bud, “You’re hot,” which Gad and Rannells ran with, cracking up themselves and the crowd with some fun improvisation.

There are plenty of good scripted lines — “In an actual production this song would include a gospel choir and lasers,” Doug notes; “I wish I was gay! But I’m just . . . not,” Bud opines — but the laughs dry up like, well, an underused, out-of-date printing press.

SPAMALOT
St. James Theatre
246 West Forty-Fourth St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 28, $49-$225
spamalotthemusical.com

Monty Python’s Spamalot is back on Broadway and as hilarious as ever in this updated version gleefully directed and choreographed by Josh Rhodes.

With a book and lyrics by Python Eric Idle and music by John Du Prez and Idle, the endlessly punny show debuted on Broadway in 2005, with Tim Curry as King Arthur, Sara Ramirez as the Lady of the Lake, Hank Azaria as Sir Lancelot, David Hyde Pierce as Sir Robin, Michael McGrath as Patsy, Christopher Sieber as Sir Galahad, and Christian Borle as Prince Herbert, garnering fourteen Tony nominations and winning for Best Musical, Best Director (Mike Nichols), and Best Featured Actress (Ramirez). Based on the 1975 comedy Monty Python and the Holy Grail, one of the funniest movies ever made, Spamalot still holds up, skewering everything in its path.

This time around Tony winner James Monroe Iglehart is King Arthur, three-time Tony nominee Christopher Fitzgerald is Patsy, Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer is the Lady of the Lake, Tony nominee Ethan Slater is the Historian and Prince Herbert, two-time Tony nominee Alex Brightman has replaced the scene-stealing Taran Killam as Sir Lancelot, and Michael Urie is Sir Robin through January 21, after which he will be replaced by Jonathan Bennett.

While Sir Lancelot doesn’t get to save Sir Galahad from almost certain temptation and no one is asked to answer these questions three to cross the Bridge of Death, you will find just about everything else here, from a killer rabbit, the French taunter, and the Knights Who Say Ni to Dennis’s treatise on the exploitation of the workers, the Plague Village, and Sir Robin’s not-quite-bravery.

There are also tons of self-referential jokes: “We won’t succeed on Broadway / if we don’t have any Jews,” Sir Robin sings. “One in ev’ry show / there comes a song like this / It starts off soft and low / and ends up with a kiss,” the Lady of the Lake explains. “How are we going to put on a Broadway show? Broadway’s a thousand years in the future in a country that hasn’t yet been discovered,” Arthur worries. Also on the menu are “Find Your Grail,” “Whatever Happened to My Part?,” and “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.”

Annaleigh Ashford and Josh Groban go into devilish business together in Sweeney Todd (photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre
205 West Forty-Sixth St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Wednesday – Sunday through May 5, $89-$435
sweeneytoddbroadway.com

Thomas Kail’s revival of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is devilishly delicious. The dark tale of a mysterious master barber who teams up with a macabre pie maker features memorable music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a delightful book by Hugh Wheeler, based on a 1970 play by Christopher Bond.

The 1979 original Broadway production starred Len Cariou as the title character and Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Lovett and won eight Tonys, including Best Musical, Best Score, Best Leading Actor, and Best Leading Actress. The current third Broadway revival opened last March with Josh Groban as Sweeney Todd and Annaleigh Ashford as Mrs. Lovett, earning eight Tony nods and winning for Best Lighting and Best Sound.

On February 9, Tony winner Aaron Tveit picks up the shaving blade as Sweeney, with two-time Tony winner Sutton Foster taking over baking the pies; an unrecognizable Ruthie Ann Miles continues her Tony-nominated performance as the beggar woman.

The exhilarating Buena Vista Social Club continues at the Atlantic through January 28 (photo by Ahron R. Foster)

BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB
Atlantic Theater Company
Linda Gross Theater
336 West 20th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 28
atlantictheater.org

It would not be surprising if the Atlantic Theater’s world premiere of Buena Vista Social Club soon finds itself on Broadway; in the meantime, the sold-out run continues at the Linda Gross through January 28.

The two-hour musical was inspired by Wim Wenders’s 1999 Oscar-nominated documentary about Ry Cooder and his son, Joachim, traveling to Cuba to record an album with an ensemble known as the Buena Vista Social Club. Book writer Marco Ramirez has created a narrative, based on actual events, that goes back and forth between the 1950s, as the Cuban Revolution is simmering, and the economically depressed Special Period of the mid-1990s. Juan De Marcos (Luis Vega), who serves as narrator, explains early on, “Some of what follows is true / Some of it only feels true.” The real Juan De Marcos is a consultant on the show.

In 1996, Juan is trying to convince legendary singer Omara Portuondo (a sensational Natalie Venetia Belcon, in a gorgeous costume by Dede Ayite) to record an album in a Cuban studio with a band he has put together, including singer Eliades Ochoa (Renesito Avich). The possibility of singing some of her old songs takes her back to her youth, when she (Kenya Browne) and her sister, Haydee (Danaya Esperanza), were singing to tourists at the Tropicana until Haydee is enticed by guitarist Compay Segundo (Jared Machado) and pianist Rubén Gonzalez (Leonardo Reyna as a young man, Jainardo Batista Sterling as the older Rubén) to join them instead at the Buena Vista Social Club, a seedy nightspot in a dangerous part of town run by vocalist Ibrahim Ferrer (Olly Sholotan, although I saw understudy Justin Showell). Decades later, Compay (Julio Monge) seeks out Ibrahim (Mel Semé) to join in the recording, but he has no desire to revisit the past.

Although it does get sidetracked by bits of treacly melodrama, Buena Vista Social Club is splendidly directed by Tony nominee Saheem Ali, with energetic choreography by Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck on Arnulfo Maldonado’s inviting two-level set. The band is fantastic, performing such songs as “Silencio,” “Dos Gardenias,” “Veinte Años,” “El Carretero,” and “Y Tu Que Has Hecho?” Each member is worthy of mention: David Oquendo, Avich, and Monge on guitars, Javier Díaz, Mauricio Herrera, and Román Díaz on percussion, Guido Gonzalez on trumpet and flugelhorn, Hery Paz on woodwinds, Gustavo Schartz on bass, and Eddie Venegas on trombone. The performance of “Candela” alone is worth the price of admission, one of the best musical scenes of the year.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

HELL’S KITCHEN

A jubilant cast lifts Hell’s Kitchen at the Public Theater (photo by Joan Marcus)

HELL’S KITCHEN
Newman Theater, the Public Theater
425 Lafayette St. at Astor Pl.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 14, $175
publictheater.org

Hell’s Kitchen, heading from the Public to the Shubert — it ends its run downtown January 14 and starts previews on Broadway on March 28 — (mostly) succeeds where New York, New York failed. Both stories take place in the city, use stage scaffolding to replicate fire escapes, follow the relationship between a man and woman involved in music, and are built around a hugely popular hit song about New York.

The latter, based on Martin Scorsese’s 1977 film, declares, “If I can make it there, I’d make it anywhere,” while the former proclaims that New York is a “concrete jungle where dreams are made of / There’s nothing you can’t do / Now you’re in New York!” But where New York, New York felt like a miscast movie shot in Toronto, Hell’s Kitchen, inspired by the life of Alicia Keys (who wrote the music and lyrics), has a far more legitimate feel, a more “empire state of mind,” flaws and all.

Maleah Joi Moon makes an explosive professional debut as Ali, a seventeen-year-old girl living with her extremely protective single mother, Jersey (Shoshana Bean), in a “one-bedroom apartment on the forty-second floor of a forty-four-story building on Forty-Third Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues, right in the heart of the neighborhood some people know as Hell’s Kitchen.” The building is filled with artists, including a trumpeter on thirty-two, a dance class on twenty-seven, opera singers on seventeen, poets on nine, painters on eight, a string section on seven through four, and a gospel pianist in the Ellington Room on the ground floor.

It’s summer in the 1990s, and Ali has decided it’s time for her to get busy with the older Knuck (Chris Lee), who drums on buckets in the street with his friends Q (Jakeim Hart) and Riq (Lamont Walker II). Ali and her homegirls, Jessica (Jackie Leon) and Tiny (Vanessa Ferguson), are sure the men are “up to no good,” but as Ali says, “We need that trouble in our lives.”

Knuck (Chris Lee) and Ali (Maleah Joi Moon) find themselves in trouble in Alicia Keys musical (photo by Joan Marcus)

That’s the last thing Jersey wants for her daughter, so she enlists her besties, Millie (Mariand Torres) and Crystal (Crystal Monee Hall), and jovial doorman Ray (Chad Carstarphen) to keep an eye on Ali’s comings and goings. Jersey does not want what happened to her — an early, unwanted pregnancy by an unreliable man, a jazz musician named Davis (Brandon Victor Dixon) — to happen to her stubborn daughter.

As she prepares for her potential sexual awakening, Ali becomes intrigued by Miss Liza Jane (Kecia Lewis), the elderly woman who plays the piano in the Ellington Room and soon becomes Ali’s mentor. But the trouble that Ali soon encounters is not the trouble she needs.

Hell’s Kitchen is structured around two dozen Keys songs, from such albums as 2001’s Songs in A Minor, 2003’s The Diary of Alicia Keys, 2007’s As I Am, 2012’s Girl on Fire, 2020’s Alicia, and 2021’s Keys, and three new tunes written specifically for the show, “The River,” “Seventeen,” and “Kaleidoscope.” The orchestrations by Tom Kitt and Adam Blackstone are lively, and Camille A. Brown’s choreography captures the energy of the street on Robert Brill’s set, enhanced by projections of the neighborhood by Peter Nigrini. The naturalistic costumes are by Dede Ayite, with effective lighting by Natasha Katz and sound by Gareth Owen.

The show is directed with a vibrant sense of urgency by Tony nominee Michael Greif (Dear Evan Hansen, Next to Normal), but the book by Kristoffer Diaz (The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, Welcome to Arroyo’s) languishes in clichés, including several cringey scenes that don’t feel real, creating a choppy narrative that doesn’t flow like Keys’s music.

Moon is magnetic as Ali; you can’t take your eyes off her for even a second. Tony nominee Bean (Mr. Saturday Night, Waitress) is engaging as the overwrought mother, shaking things up with “Pawn It All,” while Obie winner Lewis (Dreamgirls, Ain’t Misbehavin’) nearly steals the show as Miss Liza Jane, channeling Maya Angelou when she says such lines as “I will not allow you to let the pain win,” then bringing down the house with “Perfect Way to Die.” Lee (Hamilton) has just the right hesitation as Knuck, acknowledging the obstacles he faces every step of the way, and Carstarphen (Between the Bars, Neon Baby) is eminently likable as the adorable doorman.

In the last nine years, the Public has seen a bunch of shows transfer to Broadway, with differing levels of success (Hamilton, Fun Home, Ain’t No Mo’, for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf, Fat Ham, and Here Lies Love, with Suffs coming in April). With some significant tweaking, Hell’s Kitchen has the chance to be both a critical and popular hit on the big stage.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

HOW TO DANCE IN OHIO

Seven autistic actors portray seven autistic characters in Broadway premiere (photo © Curtis Brown)

HOW TO DANCE IN OHIO
Belasco Theatre
111 West 44th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through February 11, $74 – $518
howtodanceinohiomusical.com

“Will I be totally humiliated if I mess it up?” Remy (Desmond Luis Edwards) asks in the Broadway premiere of Rebekah Greer Melocik and Jacob Yandura’s How to Dance in Ohio, which opened last night at the Belasco. It’s a question that we’ve all asked ourselves, and it’s a central theme of the musical, which focuses on seven autistic young adults trying to make connections while preparing for a spring formal, dealing with the same types of emotions as neurotypical people but facing a world that was not built with them in mind.

The two-and-a-half-hour show (with intermission), which was developed and first presented at Syracuse Stage, was inspired by Alexandra Shiva’s Peabody Award–winning documentary about Amigo Family Counseling in Columbus, Ohio, which provides “Respons· ability Social Therapy” for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The film featured more than two dozen child and adult clients — they avoid such words as “patients,” “sufferers,” and “victims” — but the musical has trimmed it down to seven young adults, each with one particular disorder. Although some of the characters are based on specific clients, they are all amalgams; none is an exact representation, with various changes made for dramatic purposes.

The clinic was founded by Dr. Emilio Amigo (Caesar Samayoa), who, in the show, runs it with the help of his daughter, Ashley (Cristina Sastre), a ballerina at Juilliard who is recovering from a fractured leg and reconsidering her future as a dancer. (The actual clinic has a handful of therapists, specialists, and aides covering several different groups.) AFC has seven clients: Remy (Desmond Luis Edwards), who wants to be a stylish viral superstar; Caroline (Amelia Fei), who is starting college and has her first boyfriend; Jessica (Ashley Wool), a dragon lover who wants to move out of her mother’s house; Drew (Liam Pearce), an electrical engineering wiz choosing which university to attend; Mel (Imani Russell), who is seeking a promotion at the pet store where she works; Tommy (Conor Tague), who hates collared shirts and is getting ready to take his driving test, excited to get behind the wheel of his brother’s new truck; and the newest member of the group, Maredith (Madison Kopec), who is obsessed with facts.

“I am going places / There are places I need to be,” the group sings. “But, most of the spaces / that I want to get to / were not designed for me.” They explain, “That’s what we do in Ohio: / Doing the same thing over and over.” Jessica says self-referentially, “Like lines of a play, or a song’s refrain.”

Terry (Haven Burton) and Johanna (Darlesia Cearcy) go dress shopping with their daughters in How to Dance in Ohio (photo © Curtis Brown)

At Maredith’s first session, Dr. Amigo tells everyone to “circle up!,” passing around a long white rope as each client shares something personal, slowly connecting them all, even if they’re not necessarily comfortable with it. The fears and anxieties they face range from tying shoelaces and answering telephones to speaking with strangers and being touched. Some have trouble showing emotions and setting boundaries, and most have repetitive habits. “Repetition creates reality,” Mel notes.

Dr. Amigo decides to hold a spring formal at the Encore nightclub, a dance where the group can face their social awkwardness while practicing communication skills and experiencing a rite of passage. It sounds like a terrible idea — especially when he encourages them to bring dates, whether from within the group or outside it — but Dr. Amigo wants his clients to take that next step.

“Disaster is always a possibility / Real life is loud, confusing, fast / We shelter our children because we care / But how long can childhood last?” he tells Columbus Gazette reporter Shauna Parks (Melina Kalomas), adding, “Because victory is also a possibility / Your odds improve each time you try / Your skin gets thicker, failure stings a bit less / and maybe that’s worth all the worry and stress.” The doctor is also meeting with blogger Rick Jenkins (Carlos L Encinias), who wants to do a big piece on the dance.

As the event nears, Drew’s parents, Amy (Melina Kalomas) and Kurt (Encinias), are concerned about Dr. Amigo’s influence over their son; Jessica’s mother, Terry (Haven Burton), and Caroline’s mom, Johanna (Darlesia Cearcy), take their daughters dress shopping at Macy’s while Maredith’s widowed father, Michael (Nick Gaswirth), can only afford discounted clothing at Dress Barn; and the clients consider how they will pair up for the formal.

How to Dance in Ohio is dedicated to Hal Prince, who was originally going to direct the production before he died in 2019 at the age of ninety-one. His granddaughter Lucy Chaplin is autistic and served as inspiration to Shiva. Melocik, who wrote the book and lyrics, has Tourette’s syndrome, and Yandura, who composed the music, has an autistic sister.

Directed by Sammi Cannold in her Broadway debut, the show moves like clockwork, at a swift, even pace, with evocative, if unspectacular, songs (“Today Is,” “Under Control,” “Drift,” “Terminally Human,” “Building Momentum,” “Two Steps Backward”) and choreography by Mayte Natalio, lighting by Bradley King, and sound by Connor Wang that all take into consideration how movement, noise, and flashing lights can affect not only the seven autistic actors but audience members as well. There are cool-down spaces in the mezzanine and lower lounge for anyone who might need to take a break, in addition to sensory bags with fidget toys and glasses that are available for borrowing at the merch stand. Robert Brill’s set consists of LED letters arranged in grids in the back and on columns on either side, along with rectangles of numbered dance steps; location changes either descend calmly from above or from the wings as the narrative shifts from a room in the clinic to stores, a nightclub, a bus stop, and several characters’ homes.

Dr. Emilio Amigo (Caesar Samayoa) prepares his clients for a spring formal in How to Dance in Ohio (photo © Curtis Brown)

Unfortunately, the book is laden with problems, primarily when Melocik strays from the documentary and invents subplots involving the reporters, class difference, and Dr. Amigo’s battles with parents over his possible interference in their children’s lives. The additions seek to give voice to the seven young adults and educate theatergoers about the right words and approach when talking about or to people with autism, but it displays a lack of confidence in the audience to figure that out by the action that unfolds in front of them; instead, we’re hit over the head with teaching moments that don’t ring true.

None of that detracts from the production itself; the seven autistic actors, all Broadway newcomers, are terrific, and they seem to be having the time of their lives onstage. When Edwards, as Remy, looks into his ring light and says, “This is the ‘Many Faces of Me,’ with me, Remy: live! I see you, Tommy! — Our first topic is: Nothing about us without us,” he is speaking for the neurodivergent community as a whole, celebrating their multifaceted existence. When Drew offers to lend a book about Pangea to Marideth, it’s a subtle metaphor for the seven clients: Pangea was the single land formation that eventually broke into the seven continents, evoking how the clients are unique individuals who should not merely be seen as a group unto themselves.

Samayoa (Come from Away, Sister Act) is the glue that holds it all together, with solid support from Sastre, Burton, Cearcy, Encinias, Gaswirth, and Kalomas, although some minor characters are underwritten, there just to push through a small, forced story point.

In a 1980s public service announcement for United Cerebral Palsy that has stuck with me for decades, actor Tony Danza asks, “How do you treat a person with a disability?” After receiving a variety of comments from several random people in the street, Danza shares the answer: “Like a person.” That essentially is what How to Dance in Ohio is attempting to convey in regard to autism, and it does so with an abundance of charm, even though it occasionally goes astray. But it gets to the heart of so much of what makes us all human, as we progress from children to teenagers to young adults: learning to drive a car, going out on a first date, selecting a college, choosing a social media presence, and building momentum to be able to eventually live on one’s own.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

JAJA’S AFRICAN HAIR BRAIDING

Marie (Dominique Thorne, right) receives an unexpected visitor in Jaja’s African Hair Braiding (photo © Matthew Murphy, 2023)

JAJA’S AFRICAN HAIR BRAIDING
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West Forty-Seventh St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through November 19, $74-$205.50
www.manhattantheatreclub.com

“I feel like I moved in for the day,” Jennifer (Rachel Christopher) says in Jocelyn Bioh’s Broadway debut, Jaja’s African Hair Braiding. An aspiring journalist, Jennifer is a kind of doppelganger for the audience; she arrived just as Jaja’s hair salon on the corner of 125th St. and St. Nicholas Ave. in Harlem opened, asked for long micro braids, and has spent the entire morning and afternoon with Miriam (Brittany Adebumola), an optimistic stylist from Sierra Leone. It’s Jennifer’s first time in the shop, and she carefully watches from her chair to the side as people come and go and the stylists laugh, argue, gossip, and wonder what’s next for them. Just as Jennifer starts to feel part of this tight-knit community, so does the audience.

It’s an auspicious, and very hot, July day in 2019, and Senegalese owner Jaja (Somi Kakoma) is getting married that night. Her eighteen-year-old daughter, wannabe writer Marie (Dominique Thorne), is managing the shop and the stylists, who can be a handful: the Ghanaian Sista Bea (Zenzi Williams), a busybody who thinks she’s better than the others and is hoping to open her own salon; the Senegalese Aminata (Nana Mensah), who loves hanging around the shop, especially while she’s having issues with her husband; Miriam, a patient and agreeable young woman with a surprise secret; and the Nigerian Ndidi (Maechi Aharanwa), a fast, talented, fun-loving braider who the older Bea is jealous of.

Over the course of the day, a variety of customers come and go. The nasty and rude Vanessa (Lakisha May) complains about nearly everything, from the way the others look at her to the chair. Chrissy (Kalyne Coleman) is a cheerful young woman who wants to look like Beyoncé. Sheila (May) is a businesswoman who can’t stop talking on her phone. Laniece (Coleman) is a local DJ. And Michelle (Coleman) is a nervous mother who has made an appointment with Ndidi instead of her usual stylist, Bea, who is furious and feels betrayed.

Also stopping by are a series of men, including Franklin the Sock Man, Olu the Jewelry Man, and Eric the DVD Man, selling their wares, in addition to Aminata’s husband, James (all portrayed by Michael Oloyede).

Shortly after Jaja (Somi Kakoma) arrives, the narrative takes a sharp, unexpected turn, forcing everyone to face a hard dose of contemporary reality.

Jocelyn Bioh’s Jaja’s African Hair Braiding takes place in a Harlem salon (photo © Matthew Murphy, 2023)

In School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, Bioh, who has appeared in such plays as Suzan-Lori Parks’s In the Blood, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Everybody and An Octoroon, and Jaclyn Backhaus’s Men on Boats, follows a group of young Ghanaian students seeking to be selected as a contestant for Miss Ghana, raising issues of jealousy, fairness, and colorism.

She expands on the concept of Black style in Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, celebrating individuality and woman entrepreneurship while also exploring immigration and the African diaspora in America. In a program note, Bioh explains, “To many people, they are just ‘hair braiding ladies,’ random women people pass by on the street, but to me, they are heroes, craftswomen and artists with beautiful, gifted and skilled hands.” Each character has her hopes and dreams, her fears and desires, that feel real, not cartoonish or pedagogic.

At the center is Marie, who, despite being the youngest, is both friend and mother to the other stylists while figuring out how she can afford to go to college and start up her own life. “You know, I really don’t wanna talk about ANY of this anymore, okay?! I don’t want to talk about school or my mother or her ‘connections’ or whatever you saw on the news!” she blurts out, succumbing to the pressure. “Trust me — this is already all I think about every single day. Every single second! For once, can I just have a day where I come here, do my work — in peace — and go home? Is that okay?!”

The show is lovingly directed by Obie winner Whitney White (soft, On Sugarland), balancing uproarious comedy and wit with sincerity and grace. The ensemble cast is outstanding, led by Thorne as Marie, who imbues her with an inner strength that is wise beyond her years yet existing on a knife’s edge. Adebumola is engaging as the warm and caring Miriam, Mensah is hilarious as Aminata, and Oloyede pulls off quite a feat in portraying all four male characters.

Dede Ayite nails the costumes, giving identity, dignity, and humor to each of the women. The effective lighting is by Jiyoun Chang, with lively sound and original music by Justin Ellington. David Zinn’s phenomenal set, a remarkably detailed salon that essentially puts the audience right in Jaja’s shop (and receives its own well-deserved applause), and Nikiya Mathis, who is responsible for the spectacular hair and wigs, are stars in themselves.

You won’t mind spending a lot more time in Jaja’s, moving in for a day or more.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]