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Kimberly Morgan, creator of the one woman show, "Hot Comb: Brandin' One Mark of Oppression." It was one of last year's more celebrated theater productions, and it's being restaged at Pillsbury House Theater starting Jan. 20. (Image courtesy of Pillsbury House Theater)

One of last year's most talked-about local theater productions focused on the hair of African American women. "Hot Comb: Brandin' One Mark of Oppression," is a one-woman show which delves into the racial, social and political underpinnings of black hair. The play is being restaged, beginning Jan. 20.

Minneapolis, Minn. — Many African American women have at some point come under intense scrutiny because of their hair.

Take Nede Windham of Minneapolis, for example. Windham recalls an elderly white woman who walked up to her at a bank, and with loud expressions of awe started lifting her braids and examining them. It wasn't the only time the curious have inquired about her hair.

"You get the 20 questions," Windham says. "How did you do it? How long did it take you? Is that your hair? Is it fake hair? Did you wash it? How did you wash it? I think our hair is really a mystery, because it comes in so many shapes and sizes and styles."

The play "Hot Comb" takes on these questions. Windham has seen it several times. It seeks to unravel the mystery of black female hair styles by getting into the heads of the women who wear them.

Ain't nothing worse than our Aunt Wanda having attitude hot-combing your hair on Saturday morning. She'd be acting like she hate our hair, the way her face be all scrunched up all the time and she'd be cussing under her breath."

That's one of an array of characters in "Hot Comb," which is written and performed by Kimberly Joy Morgan.

Morgan says the first draft of "Hot Comb" came eight years ago, when she was stressed out about not having a subject for her college senior honors thesis. She had also just cut off all her hair, and people wouldn't stop bugging her about it.

"I had a conversation with an individual who was a grad student about my hair woes, and he said, 'Kimberly, that's your show,'" Morgan recalls.

Morgan says the evolution of black hair in America is rooted in racism.

It begins with the brutal subhuman treatment of slaves by their masters, and the elevation of the ideal of white beauty. She says slaves were taught to hate their appearance, and denied the tools to do anything about it.

"We in Africa had everything we needed in order to groom and take care of our hair, and love ourselves. But here, those things weren't readily available," Morgan says. "So then the self-loathing came when white women and their hair, and white men and their hair, were put on a pedestal."

From hair grease, Ultra Sheen and dreadlocks to braids, afros and jeri-curls, "Hot Comb" jumps back and forth through the history of black hair.

Kimberly Morgan plays more than a dozen characters. They include Ernestine, aka "sista of the hot comb;" a Harlem Renaissance-era hairdresser; and Grandma Ruby, a black matriarch in her 90s.

There's also Tyra, the club-hopping "sista of the weave."

"Ooooohhh! Now look at sista girl with that perm on the dance floor, and oh boy! Girl is two-steppin' where she know she wanna drop it like it's hot. She can't get her swirl on 'cuz she too scared she gonna sweat out her perm.

"Then there's "rasta" girl coming out the bathroom with them locks. Now she knows she been in there about six times just checkin' her makeup, trying to look natural while fakin the font. Her hair ain't a bit more real than mine, and sista swear she the truth and I'm the lie. Well at least I know I'm not happy being nappy and I'll admit it to anyone."

For many black women, watching "Hot Comb" is like watching their lives flash in front of them.

Both Nede Windham and Shonda Allen have vivid memories of getting their hair straightened or pressed with a hot comb.

To demonstrate how it's done, Allen sits in a chair holding an imaginary jar of grease, while Windham pretends to apply a burning hot iron comb to Allen's head.

"She's holding the grease," Windham says. "Take the hot comb off the stove, and you start to press and you hear that ssssssssss -- that sizzle noise, and the smoke rising, and you know that hair is getting pressed."

"The smell of hair," laughs Allen.

"And the house smells like hair and somebody come over and they go, 'Oh Lord, they gettin' their hair pressed,'" Windham says.

"For a lot of African American women, it's very affirming to come to this show," says Kimberly Morgan. "You finally see yourself for an hour and a half and it's in a positive light. And you're not the sex object or the mammy, you know, that there's a gamut."

Morgan also wants the play to serve as translation for those who don't understand black culture. While audience member Nede Windham fondly recalls her hot-combing days, somebody outside the black community might see it as abuse.

"But you know in reality, it was an act of love, because it was done by somebody else's hands who loved you," she says.

Windham thinks black women today have a much healthier view of their hair. She says they increasingly see their abundant hair styles not as signs of oppression or defiance, but as expressions of joy.

"Hot Comb" is being restaged at Pillsbury House Theater from Jan. 20 through Feb. 18.