'Da Kink in My Hair: Voices of Black Womyn

'da Kink in my hair: voices of black womyn. trey anthony. Toronto: Playwrights Canada, 2005.60 pp. $15.95 sc. In an early moment in 'da Kink in my hair, Enid, expressing her desire for love-or at least a man to share her sweet potato pie with--asks, Can I get a witness? (p. 32). This seemingly simple request--that a black woman have her story heard--lies at the heart of 'da Kink as a social text; it is a request that has been answered enthusiastically over and over again since the play's first production in 2001. Since then spectators have been bearing witness to the congregation of black women who gather at a West Indian salon in Toronto in 'da Kink. This November the play will begin its first overseas run at London's Hackney Empire Theatre. More locally, Global Television plans to produce a series based on the play next year. 'da Kink has been a success since its premiere at the Toronto Fringe Festival, at which it outsold all other shows, was the Toronto Sun's Pick of the Fringe, and was honoured with a Critic's pick by Now Magazine. When performed at Theatre Passe Muraille two years later, it received the highest box office sales in the theatre's history. The play even triumphed commercially in January 2005 when it was selected by Mirvish Productions as the first Canadian play to be produced at the Princess of Wales Theatre, and the six-week run was extended for four months. 'da Kink follows a day in the life of hairdresser Novelette. While she colours and cuts their hair, she convinces women to have the courage to change their hairstyles. Her customers, the black women of her community, open up to Novelette while sitting in her chair. As she says: If you want to know a woman, a black woman, that is, touch her hair. Cause our hair carries our journey (p. 5). Throughout the play, Novelette's wise-cracking commentary and her conversations with the women in her salon are interspersed with their individual monologues: there is Patsy, a Christian woman whose son was the victim of gun violence; Sherelle, a businesswoman exhausted by her life in a white man's club; Enid, the widow who seduces the man next door; Sharmaine, an actress whose homosexuality led to her estrangement from her mother; young Stacey-Anne and her heartbreaking memoir of immigration to Canada and sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather; and lastly there is Nia, preparing for the funeral of her mother who privileged her sister because her baby could easily pass for White (p. …

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