First, we want to say how awesome it is that the world of theater is back. Goodman Theater has opened its doors again with School Girls, Or, The African Mean Girls Play, and you could feel the electric vibe of people rejoicing, even with their masks.

Scheduled to open at Goodman Theatre in March 2020, this compelling story of teens fighting for hierarchy and privileges was suspended several days shy of their scheduled opening night due to the coronavirus. As a result, theatres across the country went dark for nearly 17 months.

However, all was not lost as technology has allowed us to see Goodman’s digital recording of the Chicago premiere in the comfort of your own home.

The American culture brought numerous nasty-teen movies to the silver screen, where privileged students rule the schools by intimidating their lesser-qualified classmates. This genre has been told through a style of clique-bait film, including “Jawbreaker,” “Legally Blonde,” and “Heathers.” However, one stands out distinctively, ‘Mean Girls’ by Tina Fey, starring Lindsay Lohan, where the unassailable standards of beauty among elite students rule the school, whether fat or thin, cruel or kind, light or dark, the hatred was real. This version of American teenagers where predators seek out the weak in their natural habitat became a classic hit.

Jocelyn Bioh, a Ghanaian-American actor and playwright and a native of New York City, uses this narrative for School Girls, Or, The African Mean Girls Play. Some of her work includes The Ladykiller’s Love Story, Happiness and Joe, and Nollywood dreams. Bioh’s version of ‘Mean Girls’ echos Tina Fey’s comedy. School Girls is a cruelly funny, refreshing, and poignant comedy; however, the buoyant play’s central plot confronts racism from colorism.

Rarely spoken about is the subject based on skin-toned within the same racial ethnicity; however, School Girls tackles it with the premise of educating the audience about how these kinds of everyday teen problems are universal.

Set in 1986 in Ghana is a riveting heartwarming story with a moral message of similarities and palpable differences. The Queen Bee of a very elite boarding school in Ghana is fiercely determined to be Miss Ghana 1986 and competes for the Universe pageant. Believing she is a sure bet to win over the other girls in the school, a new student arrives and causes fiction. She has a fair complexion and pretty looks, which changes the viewpoint of Miss Ghana, 1966 regarding the Ghana contestant’s acceptable appearance to win the pageant; bringing colorism into the forefront, and we learn what it means to be a “Mean Girl!”

Director Lili-Anne Brown has an aesthetic sense of her returns to the Goodman, where she recently directed Lottery Day by Ike Holter. Brown puts a very talented cast of young ladies on stage, who brings a discerning perspective to the competitive life of teens with rawness, intensity, and all of its complexities. This all-female cast,
eccentric presence was spot-on with perceptions of teenagers and their problems.

The cast includes the ensemble work of Adia Alli (Gifty), Katherine Lee Bourné (Ama), Kyrie Courter (Ericka Boafo), Ashley Crowe (Nana), Ciera Dawn (Paulina Sarpong), Tiffany Renee Johnson (Mercy), Tania Richard (Headmistress Francis) and Lanise Antoine Shelley (Eloise Amponsah). During the auditions stage, the young ladies come together to perform what can only be the worst choral rendition ever of Whitney Houston’s “The Greatest Love of All.” Although this was a funny scene, a poignant message within the song sums up the tale of the skin-deep story ‘Learning to love yourself are the greatest love of all.’

Ciera Dawn plays the reigning Queen Bee Paulina and her followers, a group of girls at Aburi Boarding School. She considers herself a woman of the world and automatically assumes she will be the local contestant in the Miss Universe pageant. Paulina torments her classmates every chance she can by belittling them with secrets she knows about them so that she can continue to rule the school. Hurling her cruelest insults against Nana, “Are you determined to look like a cow?” who is fighting with weight issues.

Her nemesis Ericka Boafo played by Kyrie Courter, the daughter of a local cocoa tycoon, presence is immediately a threat to Paulina’s dominance as she finishes her last year of high school at Aburi. Ericka possesses the traits that Paulina wished she had, sophistication, kindness, and beautiful light skin. In addition, Ericka brings inflections and honesty to the girls who Pauline once ruled. She knows the truth about western brands, Walmart, and White Castle (“is not a castle with food”) or a “Calvin Klean” dress to wear to the dance bought from Chinatown is a mere knock-off of Calvin Klein.

Just like the camaraderie between Paulina and Erika, Lanise Antoine Shelley, as Eloise Amponsah, and the headmistress Francis, played by Tania Richard, roots run deep. Once classmates at Aburi, they are not beyond a few choice words years later. In her role as Miss Ghana 1966, Eloise, the pageant recruiter, is trying to be seen twenty years later by helping another Ghanaian become queen even if she doesn’t represent the country standards. She prefers Ericka, who is “more universally accepted and has a commercial look. Francis’s headmistress chooses to promote the dark-skinned Paulina, a better fit for a proud black Ghana.

The high-school life in an elite school will never grow old as long as we have cruelty and prejudice within young women who are ‘Queen Bees’ and ‘Wannabes,’ which provokes synergy. At the very end, Bioh unexpectedly gives us a dose of the morality of cultural dominance. Leaving those who believed that they would never be seen or accepted and never good enough in the world they live in due to their skin color.

Let’s Play ‘Highly Recommend’ that see ‘SCHOOL GIRLS; OR, THE AFRICAN MEAN GIRLS PLAY’ at The Goodman Theatre.