da’ Kink in my Hair at Soulpepper/TO Live
Photo by Dahlia Katz
Happy 20th birthday, da’ Kink in My Hair.
A remount of the show helmed by Soulpepper artistic director Weyni Mengesha, who directed the original production, opened at the Bluma Appel Theatre this past weekend.
At 867 seats, the Bluma Appel can be hard to fill, but ‘da Kink in My Hair is so beloved by Toronto that it had the place pulsing with rock concert energy during the Saturday matinee I attended.
The show, which is set in a hair salon, alternates between two theatrical modes: communal hangout scenes and direct address monologues.
In the hangout scenes, salon owner Novelette (Ordena Stephens-Thompson) chats with her customers — who wait in line for hours to get their hair done — about things big and small. There is no larger narrative that involves all the characters; instead, the salon is where everyone’s individual narratives intersect. It’s a place for the women to reflect, laugh, and cry about things that are happening in each other’s lives.
In the direct address monologues, the women open up to the audience, and often share the darker sides of their personal histories.
Both the scenes and the monologues galvanize the audience. The scenes are hilarious, and, because they are scenes of community, warmly invite the audience in on the joke. In the monologues, the actors carefully and genuinely connect to the audience; and during the performance I saw, the audience responded loudly to the directness of this connection, shouting back responses any time there was a pause.
Though, to paint broadly, the scenes are comedic and the monologues are dramatic, playwright Trey Anthony has interspersed them carefully, so joy and sorrow constantly overlap — two sides of the same coin.
This production caps that overlapping off with songs and movement scores that fly at dizzingly emotional heights. Joanna Yu’s set includes murals that flash during transitions, and Kimberly Purtell’s lighting richly textures the cavernous space.
‘da Kink in My Hair is a Canadian classic, and it is wonderful to see it back in such a vibrant production. Older audiences can rediscover it, and observe how they’ve grown with the show, while my generation gets the joy of experiencing it for the first time.