The typical teen story portrayed on film and TV for decades on end has a comfortingly familiar story: Plucky newcomer shows up at a high school and immediately ends up in the crosshairs of the evil prima donna or BMOC and their group of subservient underlings who either take delight in torturing the fresh meat, or find themselves finally being freed from the shackles of their subservience.
In that way, School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play, which opened Monday on Broadway at The Samuel J. Friedman Theatre is, on its surface, working from the very same script. But it turns out the play (written by Jocelyn Bioh and directed by Whitney White) is merely using that teenage trope to examine much more complex and uncomfortable issues of race and class.
The year is 1986 — appropriately set firmly in the decade when the modern teen dramedy was birthed (John Hughes, R.I.P.). The setting is Aburi Girls Boarding School in Ghana, where a clique of girls operate firmly under the thumb of wannabe pageant queen Paulina (played with devious delight by The Gilded Age‘s Denée Benton), who mocks her minions and monitors their weight with questions like “Do you want to be fat-fat? Or fit and popular?”
Paulina is obsessed with winning the upcoming Miss Ghana pageant, which would lead to a spot in the even bigger Miss Global Universe competition. All she has to do to is impress the visiting pageant recruiter and a place in the contest is hers. What could possibly get in the way?
And there’s your cue to enter the affable, talented, and attractive newcomer to throw Pauline’s entire plan into disarray. But this isn’t just any newcomer to the school. It’s an American. It seems Ericka (a delightful Jasmine Amy Rogers, fresh off a stellar run in The 25thAnnual Putnam County Spelling Bee) has moved back to Ghana from Ohio, and Pauline’s subjects are immediately transfixed by her cultural cache.
Ericka knows how to properly pronounce Calvin Klein! Ericka can spill the beans on what White Castle is really like! Ericka saw New Edition in concert and has a signed poster! (Even I’m a bit impressed by the last one. Special shout-out to the always criminally underrated “Popcorn Love.”)
Naturally, this threatens Jasmine’s spot at the top of the food chain, and tension — especially with the pageant approaching — increases. It’s all setting up to be another fun and frothy battle of the teens, but there’s something else at play at here: the color of Ericka’s skin.
It begins when the other girls start marveling at Ericka’s lighter complexion and ask what kind of bleaching cream she uses. “The ones they sell here will just burn your skin off,” notes Mercy (Jordan Rice). “And they give really bad blisters.”
When told that Ericka does not, in fact, use cream to lighten her skin and it is just her natural tone, Gifty (Nia Otchere-Sarfo) responds, “Wow. You really are blessed.”
How would the girls ever get such a warped idea of beauty? It soon becomes clear when a former student — and Miss Ghana 1966, as she repeatedly reminds everyone — named Eloise (scene-stealing Tony winner Patina Miller) returns as the pageant recruiter. She minces few words when explaining to Headmistress Francis (a boisterous Heather Alicia Simms) precisely what type of contestant she is looking for.
“It has become clear that MGU judges are fond of girls who have a more universal and commercial look,” she tells the Headmistress. “We are just looking for girls that fall on the other end of the African skin spectrum.”
And there it is. Colorism has entered the conversation.
What began as a plucky battle between a friendly newcomer and a queen bee with a nasty stinger morphs into something much more complicated, especially as further revelations are uncovered. But while School Girls shifts into another gear by fearlessly tackling African ideals of beauty with words and deeds that had the audience gasping at points, it also remains very, very funny.
Miller and Simms are cooking in the first reunion scene between the pretentious Eloise and no-nonsense Headmistress, who used to be classmates at the very same school. Meanwhile, the crackling friendship between Mercy, Gifty, Ama (Lucia Aremu) and Nana (Erin Morton, also excellent in the recent revival of Heathers: The Musical) lifts the entire production.
The show also features the funniest scene of the year in the form of a group musical number (set to Whitney Houston‘s “Greatest Love of All”) that ends with a hilarious sing-off between Paulina and Ericka that showcases Rogers prodigious pipes as well as Benton’s comedic chops. It will have you literally crying with laughter.
The era-appropriate pageant tryout costumes and colorful school uniforms by recent Tony winner Qween Jean (Cats: The Jellicle Ball) help set the story, as does every fabulous piece of African clothing worn by Simms. And the sparse yet inviting school cafeteria scenic design by Teresa L. Williams provides the arena where all the bonding and battles will take place.
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With such a story, you might expect that Ericka will eventually either topple Paulina or the two will find they have more in common than they think and become friends. You might have your guesses as to how the whole pageant situation shakes out — either with a triumphant victory or a principled stand against a corrupt system. Suffice it to say that School Girls provides an ending that — like the show itself — surprises, subverts, and defies easy expectations… or tidy answers. Grade: A–
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