NEW YORK — Sometimes you need to see two different productions of a show to understand the value of a truly inspiring stage director who can take a narratively predictable script and turn it into a total blast.
Such was the case for me with “School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play,” a cumbersomely titled moral comedy from Jocelyn Bioh that the director Whitney White has transformed into a profoundly optimistic Broadway celebration of girlhood.
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The show now possesses a spirit so exuberant as to enthrall for its joyous 80 minutes of running time.
“School Girls” invites comparison with “John Proctor is the Villain,” another recent Broadway play set in a classroom, but this new one not only is a celebration of the importance of great teachers; it celebrates girlhood in all its complexity while also leaving you feeling optimistic about the world. That’s even though the plot has something in common with Tina Fey’s “Mean Girls,” a potent two words that also make it into the title (lamentably, in my view).
Days at the Aburi Girls Boarding School in 1986 are disrupted by the pending arrival of a scout (played by Patina Miller) looking for that year’s Miss Ghana in a global beauty contest modeled on such cultural detritus as Miss Universe and Miss World. This throws all the girls into a spiral, given that it offers both the chance to represent their country on the global stage and gain a personal ticket to fame and fortune, or so they believe.
But the girls have already established their own hierarchy. The meanie queen bee Paulina (Denée Benton), an ambitious scholarship student, considers her selection her right and just deserts, and her court of acolytes falls into line. But Paulina’s big plans are upended by the arrival at the school of Ericka (Jasmine Amy Rogers), a light-skinned Black girl from America with a Ghanaian father and a white mother back in Ohio. The scout, herself an alum of the contest, sees Ericka as the best way for Ghana to get attention, and the tables begin to turn on Paulina to the chagrin of the caring if pragmatic headmistress, Francis (Heather Alicia Simms).
Anyone who goes regularly to the theater will know after about 10 minutes that this play will soon be making the point that beauty contests are not the best way for smart, young African girls to judge themselves, and will want these characters to learn that truth. That said, Bioh is far from a heavy-handed writer and these girls of her imagination (and, I suspect, of her experience) are penned with such affection and understanding that they form the most entertaining and veracious of ensembles.
Casting adult actors as credible teens is never easy in the theater, but White not only found a company willing and able to get inside the skins of girls at a school in Ghana in the 1980s, but one that seems to love their characters so much as to be determined to carry their spirits across time and place into the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. And because these actors are all so strong and the direction is so affirmative, the comedy and heartbreak in the writing pop off the stage right into your lap.
Anyone who saw “Boop! The Musical” knows all about the vocal chops of Rogers. By casting her in a play that has a baked-in performance, White cleverly uses her massive talent to explore the complexity of what it’s like to be a teenager — or, heck, an adult — and find yourself blown away by gifts of your competition, forcing you to realize that when you look out at most things in the world, you likely are about to discover there are people better than you at almost everything.
I’ve long been of the view that “Wicked” was a hit because we all see ourselves as either the blond girl (popular or beautiful in the conventional way but with problems unseen by others) or the green girl (an outsider yearning for acceptance), and the two leading characters of “School Girls” absolutely divide along those schematic lines. Bioh, though, is a smart enough writer to make us believe that Ericka, with beauty and a huge voice, would be far happier if she did not stand out from her new friends. And that Paulina just needs someone to believe in her.
That’s a testament to this director, the two lead performers, and also to the rest of this knockout ensemble, made up of Lucia Aramu, Erin Morton, Nia Otchere-Sarfo and Jordan Rice, all playing girls with personalities and intelligence that perk up your spirits, help you better appreciate the vitality of African girls, and realize your global duty to help them shine.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic
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At the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, 261 W. 47th St., New York; www.manhattantheatreclub.com