On the heels of the remount of the 2018 hit
The Wolves, Jungle Theater brings us another smart, funny, touching, nuanced portrayal of teenage girls in the new play
School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play by Ghanaian-American playwright Jocelyn Bioh. But this time instead of American soccer players, the girls are students at a prestigious boarding school in Ghana. Although their lives growing up in West Africa are likely very different from most of you reading this blog, their emotions, struggles, triumphs, and dreams are the same. In a very fast 70 minutes, we get a glimpse into these girls' lives as they deal with family pressure, poverty, bullying, competition, colorism, and problematic standards of beauty. Like in
The Wolves, they're all fully formed complex humans that I'd like to spend more time with.
