In the teen movie classic Mean Girls, a favorite in our house, Lindsay Lohan’s exchange student, homeschooled in Africa, lands in Illinois. With a title suggested by the film Jocelyn Bioh’s delightful School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, flips its script in several ways. After a couple of acclaimed Off Broadway productions the show has landed with the impact of a glitter bomb at the Samuel J. Friedman, spraying zingers and putdowns throughout the venue. But there’s more to the story than surface sass, as there was during Bioh’s subsequent Tony-nominated hit Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, which debuted at the same theater (the Manhattan Theatre Club’s Main Stem venue) in 2023.
Bioh is Ghanaian-American, and both shows draw from this cultural bifurcation. Jaja’s is set in New York; the Friedman’s stage is now adorned with a large Ghana flag, redolent of national pride. The year is 1986, the setting is the Aburi Girls Boarding School in the mountainous central part of the country, and the milieu is familiar no matter where you happen to be. In the school cafeteria five of its female students carouse, about hair, makeup, boys, and American culture, a favorite topic not limited to Whitney Houston, Bobby Brown, and “Calvin Klean” jeans. (What details they get wrong they make up for in unabashed enthusiasm.) Four of the girls–marriage-minded Ama (Lucia Aremu), fashion-conscious cousins Mercy (Jordan Rice) and Gifty (Nia Otchere-Sarfo), and weight-conscious Nana (Erin Morton)–orbit around queen bee Paulina (Denée Benton), who rules with an iron tongue, with sweet, sensitive Nana her favorite target. Keeping a watchful eye over them is the headmistress, Francis (Heather Alicia Simms), as the ladies primp for the upcoming Miss Ghana competition. There’s no real question, though, that the school winner can only be Paulina, and she won’t let any member of her clique forget it.
Enter an actual American, Ericka (Jasmine Amy Rogers). Hailing from exotic “Ohio,” she’s the U.S. born- and bred-daughter of the local cocoa magnate, come to live with her father and his family. The new arrival, a subject of instant fascination, gets all the celebrity and fashion gossip correct, swiftly if innocently undercutting Paulina, who is under the impression that “White Castle” is, well, a white castle where she might live someday in the states like a queen. Ericka also charms Aburi’s unofficial queen, Eloise (Patina Miller), who introduces and reintroduces herself as “Miss Ghana 1966,” lording her status and ability to conjure necessary funds over Francis, her former classmate. Eloise is particularly smitten with Ericka’s lighter skin and hair color, and sees in her a potential Miss Ghana 1986–which rankles the dark-skinned Paulina, who, in a jealous rage, forces Nana to do her dirty work and steal the school’s file on her half-American competitor. Matters come to a head at a talent competition as the girls sing Houston’s hit “Greatest Love of All,” with no love lost among them as all the dirty laundry comes tumbling out.
Bioh handles heavy issues with a light touch, with plenty of bombastic one-liners packed into School Girls‘ swiftly paced 85 minutes. The nastiness is however the easy part. The impact of American culture as a fun house mirror that distorts the way all these women interact is the overarching theme, brought to full-throated life by Benton (a theater veteran and a star of HBO’s The Gilded Age) and Rogers, Broadway’s Betty Boop, both in dramatic turn-arounds from their past work. Paulina, the bullying villain of the piece, is shown to be the biggest victim of unfair expectations, as she slathers on quack whitening makeup to suit someone else’s idea of beauty. Ericka’s naïveté masks a tougher hide but she, too, is affected by circumstances outside her control, and is obliged to make an ethical choice foisted upon her by Eloise (Miller, the giantess from Pippin, dazzles formidably in costumes by Qween Jean). Francis idealistically preaches manners and decorum, which aren’t enough to stem harsher life lessons from seeping into the classroom.
Ably directed by Whitney White the show goes down easily, with every member of its stellar ensemble given ample opportunity to shine. Mention should also be made of Dawn-Elin Fraser’s dialect coaching, which keeps the performers from self-parody, and the exemplary wig, hair, and makeup design by Nikiya Mathis, all of which drive home the points Bioh is making with humor, poignancy, and empathy. Grade for School Girls: A.
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