Zainab Jah Archives - TheaterScene.net

Zainab Jah

Boesman and Lena

March 12, 2019

The production of "Boesman and Lena" at The Pershing Square Signature Center directed with attention to every detail by Yaël Farber is stark and unforgiving in a way that would have been shocking in 1970. Even though apartheid has been lifted, this play still resonates with its bleak display of human survival in the face of unimaginable terrors and its condemnation of racial inequity. [more]

School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play

November 17, 2017

Ms. Bioh’s snappy dialogue perfectly renders the rhythms of teenage lingo and the pain beneath the bravado, emitting the universality of adolescence. Bioh’s construction is meticulous as the events play out over 70 tight minutes. Besides the foreign setting there’s nothing really “new” about the play but’s it’s so well written and gloriously presented. [more]

Venus

May 26, 2017

The adept cast is led by Zainab Jah in the title role. In the one detail in which Parks’ play matches "The Elephant Man," Ms. Jah, a shapely, lovely actress, transforms herself into Venus right in front of the audience, painfully pulling on a padded costume that leaves nothing to the imagination. Ms. Jah’s Venus is a strong figure who rolls with the punches but is no match for the hypocrisy of the powers that be. She is a strong enough actor to keep her head above the fray. [more]

Eclipsed

April 16, 2016

An opportunity to see the luminous Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong’o live on stage may be the reason most people are rushing to the Golden Theatre, but, thrilling as that may be, "Eclipsed" is its own reward, a starkly detailed, microcosmic observation of just one ghastly corner of a ghastly civil war. [more]