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The Stoop · Hana Baba and Leila Day

Braids on Stage

December 5, 2024·24 min·2 clips
Playwright Jocelyn Beo reveals how a hair braider became her mother and therapist during a wedding meltdown.
The salon is more than scenery. Hannah and Leela start with the buzz of seeing Jocelyn Beo's play, Zsa Zsa's African Hair Braiding, then bring that stoop-side curiosity into a conversation with her. A chair turns into a mirror. One host admits that getting braids can make her go quiet, shrink into herself, open a laptop, and wonder whether that silence costs her something. Jocelyn does not scold her for it. She makes room for the plain reality of needing a style done, while still asking what stories move through the room while the work happens. That is where the episode clicks. The play makes the familiar braid shop exchange harder to look past, especially the women doing the braiding and the bodies behind the work. The hands stay with everyone. Jocelyn mentions a friend with short hair who had never thought about how much braiders' hands might hurt until he watched the play. It lands softly at first, then keeps landing. From there, the conversation moves toward labor without healthcare, pension, or much protection when the body starts paying the bill. The banter does not vanish, which helps. Even when the subject gets heavy, the episode keeps room for confusion, recognition, and laughter. Jocelyn talks about Blackness through sound: chaotic laughter, clapping, stomping feet, shaking tables, pounding walls. It comes across as joy with a survival streak, not tidy symbolism. It is the noise of people still here, still talking, still making a room out of whatever room they have. The play becomes a prompt. Who are the women touching your hair, what are their hands carrying, and what changes when the chair stops being a place to disappear?

As heard by us

A salon-set conversation that turns everyday detail into a clear look at labor and care.

Jocelyn Beo's turn on The Stoop treats Zsa Zsa's African Hair Braiding as a working room, not just a setting. The talk stays close to the small things that give the place shape: the conversations, the clock, and the way a chair can hold both waiting and work while life keeps…

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Why you'd press play

A salon conversation that turns braid-chair small talk into labor, observation, and care.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →
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