Going into School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, my expectations were admittedly low. How would a play that never leaves one location manage to maintain a consistency throughout, establish concise character arcs, and somehow make cultural specificity a colorful delight? Structured around a Miss Ghana pageant audition, this unique show from Tony Award-nominated director Whitney White contains two of the year’s most engaging performances. It’s also a pleasant surprise, equal parts tragic and hilarious. With bullying and colorism at the forefront, School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play boldly lectures a new generation on the universal horrors of catty women and their harrowing motivations.
Our show starts with a group of girls being led by resident mean girl, Paulina (Denée Benton). Paulina makes it quite clear that she is the queen bee, constantly putting down the other girls, insulting their weight, and making sure they build her up as an all powerful bitch. No one seems willing to stand in her way. That is, until new girl Ericka (Jasmine Amy Rogers) steps in. Ericka is everything Paulina wants to be: she is from America, her skin is much lighter without needing to use bleach, and her wealthy family connections run deep. Though she comes from Ohio, Ericka seems to be the picture of American perfection, at least as far as Paulina is concerned. Immediately threatened, she uses her power to manipulate the others into siding with her.
What follows is an incredibly tense series of meet ups. Each scene plays out within this cafeteria space, leading up to the auditions to become the next Miss Ghana. The former Miss Ghana 1966 has been tasked with finding a hopeful that can go all the way. That means eventually competing against the universe. That’s a tall order for a country that has never managed to crack the top 10. Can Ericka or Paulina be Ghana‘s light at the end of the tunnel? If the recruiter (Patina Miller) gets her way, she will do whatever is in their power to get their girls seen; the school’s bold headmistress (Heather Alicia Simms) has decidedly different views.
Benton plays Paulina from multiple sides, fluctuating between an awful and irredeemable mean girl to someone very hurt under the surface. She takes out her insecurities on other people due to her own self-hatred. In Ericka, Paulina sees everything she cannot be, and it absolutely crushes her. That doesn’t exactly excuse any of Paulina’s awful behavior throughout. She does some truly reprehensible things during the hour and 20 minute runtime of this play that make you despise her. On the flipside, Ericka remains every bit as warm and sweet as one would hope. She doesn’t seem to boast about any of her privileged attributes. In fact, she carries her own set of emotional wounds. Everyone has their own story to tell, and Ericka’s is arguably just as compelling as Paulina’s. The parallel journeys they take are emphasized by their disparate personality traits.
As far as the other characters are concerned, the remaining girls are quirky enough to stand out. Best friend Ama (Lucia Aremu) is the first to speak out against Paulina, and she hides a quiet strength underneath a flamboyant exterior. The quiet and somewhat overweight Nana (Erin Morton) is another stand out. Paulina targets Nana over any of the girls, and yet she remains a gem in her own right. Though she gets manipulated, Nana seems to always have her heart in the right place. She doesn’t want to be controlled by Paulina and her twisted motivations. Instead, Nana has a quiet confidence that slowly emerges the deeper we get into the story. Another compelling player for me was the headmistress. Heather Alicia Simms plays her with an authoritative aura that makes the character a domineering presence. She feels like a proper headmistress, one also unafraid to get down and dirty for a little Bobby Brown.
School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play managed to impress me off its unique staging, immaculate period costuming, and authentic writing from playwright Jocelyn Bioh. The characters all feel fully lived in, even when their accents get a little wonky. There’s not a second wasted when it comes to the runtime, with even seemingly innocuous sequences becoming rather important in the grand scheme of things. Each interaction is played for maximum dramatic value. Particularly, the scenes where Paulina and Ericka are paired against one another have a striking energy. These two women are obviously pitted against one another by design, but the show avoids falling into a trap of simply combating women against one another.
Without a single male presence within the framework of the narrative we see unfold, it comes to the black women to carry the full weight of the show on their shoulders. They do so effortlessly, to no one‘s surprise. That said, I’m not sure I could personally relate to some of the grander ideas found within. There’s a weighty sadness to some of the developments, particularly in the closing stretch. The bullying aspect though was absolutely something that will speak to all people. You truly never know what’s going on inside someone’s head, so I really appreciated the efforts to humanize and expand Paulina’s character far beyond that of a cartoonish villain. Even if she never becomes fully redeemed by the end, we do at least understand more of where Paulina’s coming from.
There are universal truths found within, and women especially will find plenty here to unpack. The colorism angle and specific focus on black and Ghana culture makes this stand out in a positive way against a sea of ever expanding plays. We don’t see shows like School Girls come about very often, and I have no doubt we will not see another like it for a very long time. The specificity keeps it from ever feeling boring, and the sharp barbs of bitchy dialogue and pearl-clutching moments of intrigue are instantly memorable. My audience ate everything up like chocolate. Whatever your feelings about the subject matter, School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play is here to say maybe it’s time to go back to class.
School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play has opened up the competition for the next Miss Ghana, now playing performances at the Manhattan Theatre Club. For ticketing information, please head over to the official website.
