'Jaja’s African Hair Braiding' keeps the cornrows tight and the tone light — at first

For about 75 minutes of its 90-minute running time, “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding” comes across as a vivaciously amusing workplace comedy and a tribute to underappreciated artisans who sacrifice their fingers and make their livings weaving hair.

The last 15 minutes becomes something different, something directly and unexpectedly aligned with current headlines, but as the play does, I’ll get to that later.

Set at a hair salon in Harlem in 2019, the play brings us into the daily concerns, quirks, crushes, comic clashes and community of the West African immigrant women who work in Jaja’s shop.

Sometimes arguing over supposedly “stolen” customers, and sometimes quickly looking the other way to avoid being assigned the most demanding ones, they carefully and patiently execute any number of styles involving zig-zag cornrows; jumbo box braids; detailed microbraids; Beyonce-inspired, cascading Lemonade braids, and even, in one instance, a fanciful style that I can only describe as akin to a pink jester’s hat with round ornamental baubles. Perhaps that last style has a name; more likely, it’s a bold act of eccentric individualism.

This Chicago Shakespeare production represents a welcome innovation, a mini-tour across multiple regional theaters of a show that Manhattan Theater Club produced in its Broadway house, where it earned Tony nominations for playwright Jocelyn Bioh, director Whitney White (a Northwestern alum), set designer David Zinn and costume designer Dede Ayite. All that was well-deserved, but particularly notable is that the Tonys also gave an extra award singling out Nikiya Mathis’ hair and wig work, given the absence of such a category and the joyous lift those designs bring to the show.

The gossip and conflicts among the characters come across as mostly low-stakes. Bioh, whose “School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play” was staged at the Goodman in 2021, shows much more interest in the world and the people than in a story.

Fortunately, the world feels undeniably authentic and the people make for zesty company, each played with a commitment to the character’s personal charisma.

There’s vocal, dominating Bea (Awa Sal Secka), the type of person who seems to have always had a good idea (or customer) first before someone else “stole” from her.

There’s Aminata (Chicago stalwart Tiffany Renee Johnson), who waits for a single song she can’t remember the name of but twerks to almost every one along the way, played in rotation with television soap operas from Africa.

Miriam (Bisserat Tseggai) — who spends all day micro-braiding the hair of budding journalist Jennifer (Mia Ellis) — seems to be reserved until Jennifer probes Miriam’s reasons for leaving Sierra Leone.

Ndidi (Aisha Sougou) is the “temporary” among the group, taking charge of a seat at Jaja’s as her prior salon recovers from a fire, reminding us of the independent contractor nature of this employment world, with each stylist negotiating her own rates, always by asking the customer to step outside, even in the summer heat, for a private negotiation.

Greeting customers, mollifying them when necessary, and sweeping frequently, is 18-year-old Marie (Jordan Rice), Jaja’s daughter brought to the U.S. from Senegal when she was 4, and burdened by the stresses of undocumented dreamer-hood and a mother who would never approve of her desired writing career.

Jaja herself remains an offstage presence for a long while but makes an appearance — in an appropriately largely-than-life portrayal by Victoire Charles — to show off her dress for her wedding. The others don’t much trust her white fiancee, who will, at long last, solve Jaja’s immigration status problems, enabling her to be the all-American entrepreneur she is at heart.

And rounding out this world — which could form the basis of a pretty great sitcom if those were still in fashion — are the customers, as well as the men who enter to sell wares or flirt, embodied by the funny and versatile ensemble of Melanie Brezill, Leovina Charles, and Yao Dogbe.

“Jaja’s African Hair Braiding” stays feather-light until that turn comes towards the end. The fact that opening night in Chicago coincided with news that a certain presidential administration, which happened to be in charge when this play is set, plans to conduct immigration raids in our fair city, made the last scenes far more powerful than the writing necessarily deserves credit for. The script doesn't weave the storytelling as tightly as the characters do their customers’ hair.

That said, as I drove home I certainly found myself noticing anew the “beauty houses” in my Uptown neighborhood (one of which is only a couple of letters away from Bioh’s title), both appreciating for the first time the difficulty and dedication and meaning of the work that goes on there, as well as the imminence of the potential fears of the workers within.