School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play

Reviewed by Katie Buenneke
MCC Theater 
Through September 30

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Colorism is a topic that may be unfamiliar to many white audiences, but it’s an issue Jocelyn Bioh examines beautifully in her new work School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play, now making its Los Angeles debut at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. The production has been dubbed “the MCC Theater production of School Girls,” since it features the same director, creative team, and many of the same cast members as the MCC premiere staged off-Broadway last fall.

The story is set in the Aburi Mountains of Ghana in 1986, where we meet Paulina (MaameYaa Boafo), a mean girl if ever there was one. The first time we see her, she is mercilessly tormenting Nana (Abena Mensah-Bonsu) about her eating habits. Paulina’s ire towards the world is boundless: She mocks each girl in her retinue, from sweet cousins Gifty (Paige Gilbert) and Mercy (Miraria Sithole) to bookish Ama (Latoya Edwards). She speaks aloud each negative thought she has about them. It’s clear the girls are bristling under her tyrannical reign but stick with her for lack of another leader. Things change, though, with the arrival from America of a new girl, Ericka (Joanna A. Jones), by happenstance the day before the scout for the Miss Ghana pageant (Zenzi Williams) is due to arrive.

Ericka’s father is wealthy and Ericka’s skin is much lighter than her classmates’ — both factors that make Paulina bristle. And Ericka is willing to share her American beauty products and fashion with the girls, who eagerly flock to her side. Determined to maintain her place at the top, Paulina bullies Nana into finding dirt on Ericka.

Meanwhile, Eloise, the pageant scout, arrives, to the dismay of headmistress Francis (Myra Lucretia Taylor). Eloise was Miss Ghana, 1966, and attended the Aburi Girls Boarding School herself back in the day. She was the mean queen bee then, and Francis was one of her would-be followers. Francis tries to position Paulina as the frontrunner for the Miss Ghana title, but Eloise prefers Ericka, believing that her light skin will make her more appealing to a global audience.

And so colorism — the insidious idea that lighter skin is more beautiful than darker skin — rears its ugly head. There’s a destructive school of thought that any skin tone darker than that of a tan white person is undesirable, and people with darker skin tones should do whatever they can to get lighter skin, whether it’s spending less time in the sun or using skin bleaching creams (It goes without saying that these methods are ineffective at best and damaging at worst).

It’s a tough topic, but one that Bioh interrogates with biting wit. Parts of the plot echo or invert the movie noted in the subtitle (there’s an iconic choreographed performance in both, and here the queen bee is deposed by a newcomer from America, while Cady in Mean Girls comes to the Chicago suburbs by way of Africa). But Bioh is telling a different story, one that stands apart from Tina Fey’s 2004 movie. You can read it as an evolution, a step into a more intersectional future and one we’re all the better for.

The play is strongest when all the young women are on stage together, flattering and fighting with each other. There’s a percussive rhythm to these scenes, punctuated by bursts of genuine belly laughter from the audience. Often, the show feels like a perfect symbiosis of Bioh’s script, Rebecca Taichman’s direction, and the cast’s synchronicity. Taichman and the cast bring the text to life wonderfully well, finding little moments of character between the words on the page. Each woman on stage gets a moment to shine, and every character feels like a fully fleshed-out individual with her own desires and motivations. It could be easy to hate Paulina for being as mean as she is, but Bioh doesn’t let us. She allows us to see that Paulina’s not mean for the sake of being mean; she’s lashing out from the pain of the messages she’s internalized her whole life, which tell her all the ways she’s unworthy.

The play is so good that it’s easy to overlook its small shortcomings (the second scene plays more like a means to deliver exposition than a realistic conversation). As Mary Poppins said, “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” So it is here. School Girls uses laughter to have an important and difficult conversation about what —and who — is considered beautiful.

Kirk Douglas Theatre, 9820 Washington Blvd., Culver City; Tues.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.; Sun., 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.; through Sep. 30. CenterTheatreGroup.org. Running time: 75 minutes with no intermission.