Hannah identified with the hair-raising tale. Photograph:David Sillitoe/Sarah Lee.
You can tell what is going on with a black woman by the state of her hair, at least that's the theory. As a kid I'd walk around the house with a towel on my head, trying to imagine what it would be like to have long straight hair. I grew up in a white family, in a white neighbourhood. Go figure.
As a teenager I texturised my hair in an attempt to wear it in a pony tail like my friends. Then, when I was in my second year at university and going through a particularly intense afro-centric phrase, I shaved the lot off. For five years I was bald and proud. Then something inside me mellowed and I decided it was time for the world to see what my natural hair actually looked like.
Watching Da Kink in My Hair, which opened at Hackney Empire last week, I saw the journey I've gone through replayed on stage. And judging by their response - laughter, tears and lots of embarrassed gasps of recognition - so did most of the audience.
Written by Trey Anthony, da Kink has gone down a storm in its native Canada ("Da kink is da bomb," said the Toronto Sun). Set in a hair salon, the production is slick, the cast fresh and the story is political without being worthy. The mood changes significantly in the second half, which stops the play veering into pastiche, and as always there's an extra buzz from seeing such good parts for black female actors.
Anthony, who describes herself as a black queer activist, playwright, comedian and actor, came up with the concept of da Kink having just come out of a long relationship. She was also making the transition from chemically straightening her hair to wearing it naturally. She wrote a series of monologues and started performing them in Toronto coffee houses. The pieces were so well received that Anthony decided to turn them into a bigger work, and da Kink was born.
Novelette, owner of the salon in which the action takes place, is the conduit through which other women tell their story. The women arrive as damaged and broken as their hair, and while Novelette unpicks their braids their troubles come tumbling out. Like a black Vagina Monologues, but with more laughs, da Kink is a strong piece of theatre. The first half is lighter than the second, and there were perhaps a few too many monologues, but it's a cracking production.
Da Kink in My Hair is on at the Hackney Empire until November 25.
