3 justifications for my choices of monologues

 ‘Cockroach’ by Sam Holcroft – (Mmoma)

 I chose a monologue from this play as I thought I

really connected with it emotionally. The play is set in a secondary school and the characters are roughly the same age as me, which meant it was quite a familiar setting to me and immediately intrigued me. However war is a huge theme of the play which also engaged me as that’s not something I could sympathise with luckily. This gave me a challenge as I had to imagine what it would be like for your close class mates or even partner to be called up to fight in the war any day. The character that I play is called Mmoma, she’s a young Black girl who feels like an
outcast the entire play and strives for a boyfriend, she has many questions about the world and is always questioning her normality and kindness. ‘Does that mak
e me a coward, miss?’ She’s a strange character which I thought would be interesting to play as she has many thought changes and objectives in her speech, I think it’s quite a challenging piece as it doesn’t have many clear physical objectives but this means I can fully analyse the text and it gives me freedom to come up with multiple objectives and gear changes for the piece.

The neighbour by Meredith oaks- (Liz)

I chose this monologue because I thought it gave room for lots of physicality as she is talking to mice in a cage which she has to move around and mime, so unlike cockroach it had very clear physical objectives through the stage directions ‘Liz takes the roof of the cage.’ Liz is unemployed and tends to stay at home and according to the other characters she needs help  throughout the play and is slightly delusional as she seems to think she’s sane but is going mad at home all day. She uses her mice as an escape goat from the harsh realities and sometimes as an excuse to talk to herself. I liked the way the piece played with the space as she moves around a lot. The monologue is also filled with many emotions and gear changes which i thought would be fun to play. However the only problem with this piece is that it’s out of my age range and may have been very hard to play without pretending so I didn't choose it.

Our day out by Willy Russell- (Carol)

I worked on this monologue for LAMDA so I knew it quite well and had knowledge about it.I liked the way the scene was set on a cliff top in Wales so I could really use my imagination and picture what i was saying.  However after realising what was required of me for this unit about working with physical objectives and instincts I realised I didn't want to face myself with another challenge which was mastering a Liverpool accent. Although I am quite confident with this accent there’s still lots of room for improvement and I didn't want the accent to distract me from concentrating on other thing to make me a better actor. So I didn't choose this monologue in the end.