.Jocelyn Bioh weaves tales inspired by sitcoms

Berkeley Rep presents West Coast premier of ‘Jaja’s African Hair Braiding’

music in the park, psychedelic furs

Ghanaian-American playwright and actor Jocelyn Bioh grew up in New York City. Although by no means impoverished, her family didn’t have a lot of money. With Broadway and live theater largely off the table, Bioh says in an interview, her early education in performing came from television. Watching sit-coms like I Love Lucy, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and others performed before live audiences, the young Bioh noticed how the audience reactions were audible and that the action took place on sets not unlike those found in theaters. The shows mesmerized her.

It’s now one month before Berkeley Rep presents the West Coast premier of Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, her Broadway debut show. Reflecting on it as a 41-year-old woman, the Tony-nominated writer has gained insight about her childhood inspirations and obsessions.

“Sitcoms were a weird melding of television that felt like live theater,” Bioh says. “Often, I recorded those shows so I could watch them over and over. With I Love Lucy, which is still a favorite and a classic for a reason, I was struck by the character-driven narrative. Lucy would have a desire, often to star on Ricky’s show and get into some embarrassing antics—always in good fun—with a sweet lesson at the end.

“Lucy [played by actor Lucille Ball] could find comedy in how she blinked, moved, spoke. I find that’s a huge part of my work now,” Bioh adds. “Yes, my writing is about the words, but when actors embody the whole character, which I ask them to do, there’s an entire physicality.”

Jaja’s narrative sets the action in a Harlem hair-braiding shop where West African immigrant braiders weave the hair of locals in the community. Ten actors perform 17 different characters. With immigration as a primary theme, people’s dreams, secrets, relationships, classism, racism and insider/outsider biases reveal themselves.

The scenes encompass one long, hot summer day from 9am to 9pm. Directed by Tony Award nominee and Obie Award winner Whitney White, Jaja’s award-winning creative team includes David Zinn (scenic design), Dede Ayite (costume design), Jiyoun Chang (lighting design), Justin Ellington (original music and sound design), Stefania Bulbarella (video designer) and Nikiya Mathis (hair and wig design).

Bioh, whose early works include Goddess and others, is frequently identified as “a comedic playwright.” Because her characters demonstrate great humor, pinpoint comedic timing and idiosyncratic physical antics, it’s an accurate description, but incomplete and lacking in depth. 

“At the base of the laughter is truth,” Bioh says. ”People connect, recognizing something is funny because it’s truthful. That’s why a joke about the DMV will always be funny; we have that shared experience of waiting in line to deal with someone who’d rather be anywhere else.”

Bioh writes most often about African people, Black Americans and the African diaspora at large, and says stories told by many writers historically have not included humor, joy and light. 

“That’s a lot of who we are and how we survived atrocities and even present day oppression,” Bioh says. “That will always be the fulcrum of my work, along with heart that conveys stories with serious subject matters. You approach thinking it’s going to be a good time, and somewhere in the middle you realize the depth. I trust the audience to trust me. Jaja’s addresses colorism, racism and present day American immigration issues we had during the [first] Trump administration.”

Both as an actor and playwright, she embraces the voice and world of each play. Diversity plays a vital role within her artistry. Performing in “crazy, evocative” roles hasn’t been mirrored by characters in her plays, due to practicality more than artistic preference. 

“A crazy character hasn’t happened just because the work hasn’t called for it,” Bioh says. “I’m always writing to receive new inspiration from anywhere. I never thought I’d write a play set in a hair-braiding shop, but it’s a space I go to every few months. Maybe tomorrow I’ll walk by a tree and end up writing a play about trees.”

The idea is prototypical Bioh: simultaneously funny, intriguing and bound to be structured within a rigorous, creative, challenging format. 

“How much can happen in one day? A lot,” Bioh says. “You wake up thinking it will be one way. By bedtime, something life-changing has come to fruition. If you’ve spent significant time in a salon, barbershop or hair-braiding shop, you see a huge cast of characters. I wanted to highlight as many people as I experience when I get my hair braided. How much can I jam in to make audiences have that fly-on-the-wall experience?”

The math of the play’s logistics and the collaborative processes was complex. How could one actor fully establish one character in three to five minutes, exit, execute a costume change and swiftly return to perform an entirely different role? How best could each scene be a timestamp differentiating the rhythms and energy of morning, midday and evening? According to Bioh, Zinn’s set aimed at realism, but also at establishing the shop as a place where vulnerabilities might be exposed safely. Hair braiding wasn’t a skill she or the cast claimed, which meant consultation and training with Mathis.

Bioh says playwrights like August Wilson and Lorraine Hansberry laid the groundwork for the wave of Black diasporic stories subsequent generations are creating. “It’s not rinse and repeat, it’s not the same stories as influential writers of the past,” she says. “We’re honoring their legacy by pushing the genre forward.”

‘Jaja’s African Hair Braiding’ at Peet’s Theatre, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. Now through Dec. 15. 510.647.2949. berkeleyrep.org

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