Jordan Rice, Nia Otchere-Sarfo, Lucia Aremu, Erin Morton and Denée Benton in School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play. (Photo: Matthew Murphy)

Jocelyn Bioh’s School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play still has power nearly 10 years after its Off-Broadway premiere. It remains a cutting ensemble piece about teenage girls and the lies they tell themselves to survive unspeakable truths. Whitney White’s Broadway production is equal parts bubbly and barbed, with a team of actors who bring to life young women facing an unforgiving world.

Queen bee Paulina (Denée Benton) rules the Aburi Girls Boarding School in 1986 in Ghana. Her dream is to be chosen for the Miss Ghana beauty pageant and, from there, represent Ghana on the world stage. All she has to do is wait one more day until the pageant judges come to the school and pick her. While she waits for her big moment, she bosses around all the girls in her class, leaving them in fear of her next move, attacking each by fixating on their weaknesses.

Paulina harasses Nana (Erin Morton) for eating and her weight. Mercy (Jordan Rice) is made fun of because her doctor father won’t buy her new shoes. Mercy’s cousin Gifty (Nia Otchere-Sarfo) struggles to read. Ama (Lucia Aremu) is dragged over having a boyfriend. But fear not, the deepest loathing Paulina saves for herself. She may be the school’s villain, but she hates herself more than anyone else.

Everything seems to be going according to Paulina’s plan for her elevation to beauty queen until a new student shows up. Light-skinned Ericka (Jasmine Amy Rogers) arrives from America and shakes up the whole school. Ericka is the daughter of one of the richest men in Ghana, with long hair and fair skin that the girls envy. With this glamorous backstory, they immediately flock to her, and the old queen is deposed and a new one elevated. Such are the popularity contests of teens.

That swift shift makes sense, as the school girls are quick to abandon Paulina and her cruel ways. She was a terrible person to them. But no one stops to wonder why Ericka is trying so hard or why she is building such a defense so soon. Meanness does not disappear, it simply moves from one group to another.

But the play’s power really comes from how Bioh broadens the story from the local to the societal with a few plot twists. The girls’ squabbles turn on their head once the pageant recruiter, Eloise Amponsah (Bioh herself stepped in for Patina Miller in the role the night I saw the play), arrives. Eloise, former Miss Ghana 1966, comes in guns blazing because if she can find the next Miss Ghana, then her own prospects will be set.

While the girls already know the inequities of the world quite well, those inequities are suddenly shoved down their throats when only one girl can move on to the Miss Ghana pageant. Neither Paulina nor Ericka is immune from the realities of how the world sees African women. Swallowing such bile is agonizing, and we are forced to watch as they contemplate participating in this competition, with galling rules far outside their control.

Bioh weaves into all of this the crushing weight of colorism, European beauty standards forced upon African women, and the legacy of colonialism in Africa. Even something as subtle as the school forcing the girls to keep their hair short has its roots in colonialism and racism. The production does a nice job of using wigs to let each girl express herself a little amidst these restrictive policies. But more importantly, it shows how the school is part of this system of control, dictating what women should look like. The headmistress, at times acts as their protector, but truly she has internalized so much herself.

Benton is an imperious Paulina who is always scheming to have the upper hand until Ericka belts out the “Greatest Love of All” and all the air goes out of Paulina like a deflated balloon. Benton reveals this disappointment in waves of shock, horror, and complete collapse. Even as she is physically wounded, Benton, as Paulina, attempts to keep smiling through every indignity. She has done unspeakably cruel things but there is no glee in seeing her comeuppance. For me, Jasmine Amy Rogers is less effective as Ericka. She is immediately suspicious, and her “kindness” reads as instantly fake, which tips the scales too soon.

While the drama comes from the battles between Paulina and Ericka, I have always loved how complete the other characters in the play are. Each girl in the class has her own personality and struggles. Standouts for me were Morton, who finds a deeper, stronger voice as she belatedly fights back against Paulina, and Rice, who is vivacious as the high-strung Mercy.

White’s production is boisterous and funny until things turn sour as the serious issues underpinning the story come into focus. But it is handled so carefully that you did not notice just how much those issues were always in the room. Nearly ten years later the play remains as potent as the first time I saw it.