Jo is a 17-year-old living in a dank, cramped flat in post-war Salford, England. Her mother, Helen—a boozy, superficial former prostitute—has just married a wealthy, older man named Peter. To secure her own comfort, Helen has decided to leave Jo behind. To make matters worse, Jo’s lover, a Black sailor named Jimmie who got her pregnant, has sailed away and is presumed lost. Jo is now alone, heavily pregnant, abandoned by her mother and her lover. The only person who stands by her is her gay, art-school friend, Geoffrey.
When approaching these monologues for a new production or audition, consider these thematic shifts:
It wasn’t just sugar. It was memory, thick and slow, sliding back over me: my mother humming while she cracked eggs, the buzz of flies in an August doorway, the old man down the street who used to wink and hand me a penny. All of them folded into one small, impossible thing. I wanted to bottle it up—this weightless ache—and carry it like proof that I’d lived through something soft. a taste of honey monologue new
Jo is a beautifully complex character. She is a teenage girl living in a bleak, damp flat in Salford with her erratic, self-absorbed mother, Helen. Jo is fiercely independent yet desperately lonely. She uses sharp wit as a shield against a world that constantly lets her down.
The monologue hinges on the classic push-and-pull relationship between a mother and daughter who are too similar for their own good. Jo wants independence, but she is also terrified of being left entirely alone. When delivering these lines, avoid playing pure anger. The anger is a shield; underneath it is a teenage girl who wishes her mother would simply stay and care for her. 2. Pacing and Rhythm Jo is a 17-year-old living in a dank,
In the pantheon of 20th-century British theatre, few debuts were as explosive or as tender as Shelagh Delaney’s Written when Delaney was just 19, the play shattered the polite conventions of the "kitchen sink" drama by centering on a working-class teenage girl, Jo, who is unapologetic about her sexuality, her interracial relationship, and her refusal to play the victim.
Do you think I wanted to spend my youth in drafty rooms, worrying about the rent, wondering which man’s smile was going to cost me the least? You think I’m selfish because I want a bit of comfort? A nice dress, a man who pays for a meal, a laugh that doesn't turn into a cough? I gave you life, Jo. I kept us fed when your father cleared out and left us with absolutely nothing. To make matters worse, Jo’s lover, a Black
If you are not using a Lancashire accent, do not force a caricature. Focus on the rhythmic, blunt nature of Delaney's writing instead.