January 29, 2020
Page 5
Brisk and Funny ‘Mean Girls’ Tackles Skin Color
o PinionAted
J udge
by
d arleen o rtega
What makes teenagers so ex-
asperating to live with, and such
fascinating story subjects, is that
they reflect back to us what we
least like to see in ourselves. For
teenagers--perhaps
particularly
teenage girls--the stakes of each
interaction feel heightened, and
they haven’t yet learned how (and
see no reason) to hide or dress up
or tone down their worst impulses.
In “School Girls: or, The Af-
rican Mean Girls Play,” now on
stage at the Armory in a co-pro-
duction of Portland Center Stage
and Artists Repertory Theater,
teenage girls at a boarding school
in Ghana fight to the death over
who is prettiest and most worldly
and who has the best shot as a con-
testant in the Miss Ghana pageant.
The stakes are high--and white
supremacy makes them more sur-
mountable, even for a group of
African girls.
Playwright Jocelyn Bioh plays
this context for broad laughs, and
teenage girls the world over are
indeed funny; for these African
teenagers in 1986, “The Baby-Sit-
ters Club” can be “really powerful
stuff” and one can dream of vis-
iting an American White Castle
(“a castle with food!”). In other
hands, this material would feel
exploitive, but it helps that Bioh’s
own parents immigrated to the
U.S. from Ghana in 1968, and that
she is motivated in part by a clear
intention around presenting Afri-
can stories that move us beyond
the crude poverty porn that char-
acterizes most of our collective
image of the African continent.
The laughs here are affectionate,
and reflect some important insider
understanding about what it is like
to live female inside of dark skin.
The story revolves around a
pack of girls who jockey for in-
group status at a Ghanaian board-
ing school. The leader of the pack
is, unmistakably, Paulina (Andrea
Vernae, taut with furious energy),
who relentlessly asserts her domi-
nance with endless corrections of
the girls who vie for her approval.
There is no question in anyone’s
Photo by r ussell J. y oung /P ortland C enter s tage at the a rmory
mind that she has the only real Paulina’s (Andrea Vernae, right) dreams of winning a teenage beauty pageant in Ghana is threatened
shot at winning the pageant -- with by the arrival of Ericka (Morgan Walker) a new student with undeniable talent, beauty… and lighter
skin in ‘School Girls’ or, The African Mean Girls Play,’ now playing through Feb. 16 at Portland Center
C ontinued on P age 12
Stage at the Armory.