BEAUTY IS ONLY SKIN DEEP

Jocelyn Bioh gives the familiar
mean-girl story a funny, painful twist
in a terrific Broadway production

The “mean girls” trope, that group of popular girls usually led by a demanding, beautiful, powerful yet damaged girl, is at the center of many a successful entertainment. From Heathers to Carrie to Hairspray to, well, Mean Girls, this reliable rumination on toxic femininity usually delivers. In her latest Broadway outing, School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, playwright Jocelyn Bioh gives this familiar story a decidedly African makeover. Produced by Manhattan Theatre Club and inspired by a true event, Bioh places these stock characters in an elite boarding school in Ghana. And in moving to another country, Bioh explores a unique and culturally specific challenge that may add to why these particular mean girls are so mean. Buoyed by across-the-board terrific performances and Whitney White’s enthusiastic direction, this entertaining trip to Africa via the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre is worth the price of passage, even if Bioh’s writing falters in places.

It’s 1986 at the Aburi Girls Boarding School in Central Ghana. Bobby Brown is all the rage, and the students are excited about which one will qualify for the upcoming Miss Ghana Pageant. Excited because the winner of this local contest gets to represent Ghana on the world stage at the Miss Universe Pageant. Yes, all the girls are excited, particularly the group of pretty “popular” girls eating breakfast as the play opens in the school cafeteria.

The pageant recruiter will soon visit the school to pre-judge potential participants, and the girls wonder how best to impress. While they will all try out, they already know who will be picked. And that future winner is the beautiful, talented, accomplished, and completely dominating Paulina. As the ringleader of the most popular girls at school, Paulina runs her crew with an iron, almost sociopathic, fist. At this morning’s breakfast, after thoroughly fat-shaming the crew’s newest member, the sweet and shy Nana, Paulina expounds on why the recruiter will pick her and no one else. The other girls in her clique, Gifty, Mercy, and Ama, hang on her every word and agree that, of course, the superior Paulina will be chosen.

That is, until the arrival of Ericka, a new student who is both Ghanaian and American. Turns out Ericka’s Ghanaian father is one of the richest men in the country, not that she is particularly close to him. She’s lived most of her life in the States and only recently moved to Africa. Entering this new school as a senior, Ericka seems a nice girl who just wants to make friends and get on with her studies. Paulina, also entering her senior year, immediately views Ericka as a threat. Ericka is pretty, but so is Paulina. But Ericka is light-skinned. Very light-skinned. So light-skinned that with her curly hair and narrow features, one of the girls bluntly asks her if she is white. She is not and seemingly views her looks as just something she was born with, no more, no less. And she doesn’t really see much difference between herself and this group of lively, dark-skinned, African-featured young women. Paulina, on the other hand, knows the access and privilege that can come with fair skin, even in Ghana. And in terms of a beauty pageant influenced by Eurocentric beauty standards, how can she compete? Does Ericka even want to enter the contest? Paulina, desperate for approval, doesn’t wait to find out.

Bioh makes an inspired choice in combining mean girls, beauty pageants, and colorism. This last element gives the show surprising depth through the painful examination of the pervasive effects of racism. However, Bioh writes with broad strokes without much subtlety, creating one Big Moment after another. And this can sometimes make the storytelling feel forced and a bit unearned. Still, Bioh has a great gift for dialogue, and her character exchanges are stellar, plotting issues aside.

Whitney White’s direction makes the most of that dialogue, wringing out every bit of drama and comedy she can find. She also garners energetic, almost cartoonish, support from Lucia Aremu (Ama), Nia Otchere-Sarfo (Gifty), and Jordan Rice (Mercy), whose combined teen-girl enthusiasm practically leaps off the stage.

As Paulina, Denée Benton stuns as she takes on the many places her character needs to go, particularly when she does, indeed, get her comeuppance. Jasmine Amy Rogers is moving as Ericka, affable and engaging while trying to navigate a tough situation she didn’t ask for. Erin Morton is both heartbreaking and exhilarating as the sweet Nana who finally has enough. The gorgeous Patina Miller is hilarious and steely as Eloise, the determined pageant recruiter. And as Headmistress Francis, Heather Alicia Simms impresses as the mother figure who, both warmly and strictly, holds the school together.

Costumes by Qween Jean authentically evoke the period and setting while giving each girl a distinct personality, particularly when school uniforms give way to colorful pageant wear. Scenic designer Teresa L. Williams convincingly evokes the girls’ boarding school, with long wooden tables and benches, tiled floors, Ghanaian colors and insignia, and broad windows overlooking the surrounding countryside.

As the saying goes, “Hurt people hurt people.” But social systems hurt people too. In School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, that system is called out, and the students learn a valuable lesson. Amidst the laughs and the fashions and Bobby Brown. And maybe we can learn it too. Meet you in the cafeteria.

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photos by Matthew Murphy

School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play
Manhattan Theatre Club
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, 261 West 47th Street in New York
Tue at 7; Wed at 2 & 7; Thu–Fri at 7; Sat at 2 & 7; Sun at 2
ends on November 15, 2026
80 minutes, no intermission
for tickets, call 212.239.6200 or visit Manhattan Theatre Club

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