Monologues

It’s love. I’m in love with her, okay? If you’re looking for the word that means caring about someone beyond all rationality and wanting them to have everything they want no matter how much it destroys you, it’s love. And when you love someone, you just, you… you don’t stop, ever. Even when people roll their eyes, and call you crazy. Even then. Especially then. You just -- you don’t give up. Because if I could just give up... if I could just, you know, take the whole world’s advice and -- and move on and find someone else, that wouldn’t be love. That would be… that would be some other disposable thing that is not worth fighting for. But I... that is not what this is.

Yep, still no arrests. How come, I wonder? ‘Cause there ain’t no god and the whole world’s empty and it doesn’t matter what we do to each other? I hope not. How come you came up here out of nowhere looking so pretty? You ain’t trying to make me believe in reincarnation or something, are you? ‘Cause you’re pretty, but you ain’t her. She got killed and now she’s dead forever. I do thank you for coming, though. If I had some food, I’d give it you. All I got are some Doritos and they might kill you; they’re kind of pointy. And then where would we be?

It’s me. Christine. It’s the name you gave me. It’s a good one. Dad, this is more for Mom -- Hey, Mom: Did you feel emotional the first time that you drove in Sacramento? I did, and I wanted to tell you, but we weren’t really talking when it happened. All those bends I’ve known my whole life, and stores, and the whole thing. But I wanted to tell you. I love you. Thank you. I’m.... Thank you.

Hi!

I actually feel qualified to answer this question now since I just graduated with my Acting BFA. 

The most important thing is that your monologue is active. You must have an objective and be striving for it throughout the whole monologue. There is something you desperately want from another person and you are doing everything in your power to get it.

You should be talking to a real person who can talk back -- no “shouting at God” monologues or soliloquies. You need to know what the other person is saying and doing throughout your entire monologue. (This is why monologues are so difficult; they’re double the work.) 

This also means no story monologues. They’re so fun to do, but they don’t show off your acting skills at all (besides your ability to flesh out a character history). This blog has a lot of story monologues -- they’re garbage. Whenever I post a truly active monologue, I tag it “a” if you want to check there. 

Depending on the college, they might have other requirements (a contemporary piece, a classical piece, an extended realism piece, etc.). For a lot of teachers, it’s important that you pick a monologue from a role you could actually be cast in -- you know, don’t pick a monologue spoken by a grandma if you look 18.

And I’m so ashamed. Ever since Father died, a small, dark part of me has blamed you for his death. When they told me what happened at Fort William, that Randall flogged you himself, and seeing that is what killed Father, I thought you must have done something to bring it upon yourself. Shot your mouth off or acted without thinking of the consequences as you have done all your life. But then out of the mill pond, when I saw the scars on your back... scars made by a lash laid down with such fury. It was me. It’s my fault that Randall beat you so. That day, that day when Randall came here, when he took me upstairs... if I hadn’t’ve mocked him that way, if I’d given him what he wanted, he wouldn’t’ve treated you like he did, and then Father --. And if your life is a suitable exchange for my honor, tell me why my honor’s not a suitable exchange for your life? Are you telling me that I may not love you as much as you love me? Because if you are, Jamie Fraser, I’ll tell you right now that’s not true. 

To you, I must be. I’ve never had smallpox, but I can walk through a room full of dying men and never catch it. I can nurse the sick and breathe their air and touch their bodies, and the sickness can’t touch me. I can’t catch cholera, either, or lockjaw, or the morbid sore throat. And you must think it’s an enchantment, because you’ve never heard of vaccine, and there’s no other way you can explain it. The things I know.... I know about John Randall because I was told about him. I know when he was born and when he’ll die, I know about what he’s done and what he’ll do, I know about Sandringham because..., because Frank told me. He knew about Randall because he... he... oh, God! And Colum... he thinks I’m a witch because I know Hamish isn’t his own son. I know... he can’t sire children. But he thought I knew who Hamish’s father is... I thought maybe it was you, but then I knew it couldn’t be, and.... Everything I’ve ever told you about myself was true. Everything. I haven’t any people, I haven’t any history, because I haven’t happened yet. Do you know when I was born? On the twentieth of October, in the Year of Our Lord nineteen hundred and eighteen. Do you hear me? I said nineteen eighteen! Nearly two hundred years from now! Do you hear? Yes, you hear! And you think I”m raving mad. Don’t you? Admit it! That’s what you think. You have to think so, there isn’t any other way you can explain me to yourself. You can’t believe me, you can’t dare to. Oh, Jamie... It was the rocks... the fairy hill. The standing stones. Merlin’s stones. That’s where I came through. Once upon a time, but it’s really two hundred years. It’s always two hundred years, in the stories... But in the stories, the people always get back. I couldn’t get back. Jamie. Oh, Jamie. 

We don’t love each other. We’ve been close to each other, of course. I’ve loved you like a friend, the way thousands of women feel about other women. You were a dear friend who was loved, that’s all. Certainly there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s perfectly natural that I should be fond of you. Why, we’ve known each other since we were seventeen and I always thought – . I love you. Maybe I love you that way. The way they said I loved you. I don’t know – Listen to me. I have loved you the way they said. There’s always been something wrong. Always – as long as I can remember. But I never knew it until all this happened. You’re afraid of hearing it; I’m more afraid than you. You’ve got to know it. I can’t keep it to myself any longer. I’ve got to tell you that I’m guilty. I’ve been telling myself that since the night we heard the child say it. I lie in bed night after night praying that it isn’t true. But I know about it now. It’s there. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. But I did love you. I do love you. I resented your marriage; maybe because I wanted you; maybe I wanted you all these years; I couldn’t call it by a name but maybe it’s been there ever since I first knew you – I never felt that way about anybody but you. I’ve never loved a man – I never knew why before. Maybe it’s that. It’s funny. It’s all mixed up. There’s something in you and you don’t do anything about it because you don’t know it’s there. Suddenly a little girl gets bored and tells a lie -- and there, that night, you see it for the first time, and you say it to yourself, did she see it, did she sense it -- ? She found the lie with the ounce of truth. I guess they always do. I’ve ruined your life and I’ve ruined my own. I swear I didn’t know it, I swear I didn’t mean it -- Oh, I feel so God-damned sick and dirty -- I can’t stand it any more. 

I must, forsooth, be forced To give my hand, opposed against my heart, Unto a mad-brain rudesby, full of spleen, Who wooed in haste and means to wed at leisure. I told you, I, he was a frantic fool, Hiding his bitter jests in blunt behavior, And, to be noted for a merry man, He’ll woo a thousand, 'point the day of marriage, Make friends, invite, and proclaim the banns, Yet never means to wed where he hath wooed. Now must the world point at poor Katherine And say, “Lo, there is mad Petruchio’s wife, If it would please him come and marry her!”

I’m angry that Bobby Newport would hold this town hostage and threaten to leave if you don’t give him what he wants. It’s despicable. Corporations are not allowed to dictate what a city needs. That power belongs to the people. Bobby Newport and his daddy would like you to think it belongs to them. I love this town. And when you love something, you don’t threaten it.You don’t punish it. You fight for it. You take care of it. You put it first. As your city councilor, I will make sure that no one takes advantage of Pawnee. If I seem too passionate, it’s because I care. If I come on strong, it’s because I feel strongly. And if push too hard, it’s because things aren’t moving fast enough. This is my home. You are my family. And I promise you I’m not going anywhere.

Little articles of it, they’re ornaments mostly! Most of them are little animals made out of glass, the tiniest little animals in the world. Mother calls them a glass menagerie. Here’s an example of one, if you’d like to see it! This is the oldest. It’s nearly thirteen. Oh, be careful! If you breathe, it breaks. Go on, I trust you with him! There now – you’re holding him gently! Hold him over the light, he loves the light! You see how the light shines through him? I shouldn’t be partial, but he is my favorite one. Haven’t you noticed the single horn on his forehead? Put him on the table. They like a change of scenery once in a while! Oh. Now it is just like all the other horses. It lost its horn. It doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise. I don’t have favorites much. It’s no tragedy, Freckles. Glass breaks so easily. No matter how careful you are. The traffic jars the shelves and things fall off them. I’ll just imagine he had an operation. The horn was removed to make him feel less – freakish!

We danced. And Tituba conjured Ruth Putnam’s dead sisters. And that is all. And mark this -- let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you. And you know I can do it; I saw Indians smash my dear parents’ heads on the pillow next to mine, and I have seen some reddish work done at night, and I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down!

I’d come home after school to an empty house. My father had flown the coop, my mother worked as a maid in a hotel. It was lonely. So I brought in a baby squirrel I’d found and kept him in a shoebox. And then one day, when I came home, he looked sickly. He was dead already but I didn’t know that. I’d forgotten to feed him for a couple days. So I took him out of the box and I laid him on the table and I prayed my heart out for several hours. And when my mother came home and found her, she screamed bloody murder; she picked him up and threw him in the garbage. She worked hard, my mother. She was exhausted and she couldn’t have known how cruel that was. But I cried and cried, saying, “God didn’t answer my prayers!” I remember my mother was pouring herself a whiskey, the Martin family cure for everything. She looked at me and laughed. “God always answers our prayers Judy, it’s just rarely the answer we’re looking for.” It’s over for me, Frank, My goose is cooked.

You are survivors. But I am not a stupid man. One of you is a Jew posing as a Gentile; one is a girl posing as a boy; all of you, I assume, are literates posing as illiterate. And despite the attentions of our vigilant mountain rangers and the esteemed Obersturmfuhrer Kuefer, all these ruses have succeeded. And yet you asked to come here for a game of chess. You asked for me to notice you. This is very strange. You are not fools, that is clear, or you would already be dead. You do not really expect that I would set you free if you win this game, do you? And the dozen eggs… the dozen eggs is the strangest part of the whole equation. Of course I have the power to free you. It is not a question of – ah. Very good. You are a clever one. Play on the German’s vanity. Yes, no wonder Kuefer was so fond of you. You are a Jew. Releasing you goes against my conscience. You like to negotiate? Good, we negotiate. You seem to think you have leverage. You have no leverage. I say two words and you become a corpse. Yes? Two words. Do you understand how fast it happens? You are a corpse, they drag your body outside, I play chess with your friend. Later on, maybe I take the little redhead back to my room, give her a bath, see what she looks like without all the dirt. Or maybe not, maybe no bath, maybe tonight I want to fuck an animal. When in Rome, yes? Now think, boy, think very carefully before you open your mouth. For your own sake, for your mother’s sake if the bitch still lives, think. 

My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven. How shall that faith return again to earth, Unless that husband send it me from heaven By leaving earth? Comfort me. Counsel me.— Alack, alack, that heaven should practice stratagems Upon so soft a subject as myself.— What sayst thou? Hast thou not a word of joy? Some comfort, Nurse.

Speakest thou from thy heart?

Well, thou hast comforted me marvelous much. Go in, and tell my lady I am gone, Having displeased my father, to Lawrence’s cell To make confession and to be absolved.

Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend! Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn, Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue Which she hath praised him with above compare So many thousand times? Go, counselor. Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain. I’ll to the friar to know his remedy. If all else fail, myself have power to die.

I think… I think you’ll… I don’t think you’ll mind. You remember that after I had dinner at your house, you told me that you loved me. Well, I didn’t really know what to say. But I know what to say now. I have thought about you and I like you and I like seeing you, and maybe I feel the same way. So the next time you tell me you love me, if there is a next time, I’ll… I’ll say I love you, too.

The fairy land buys not the child of me. His mother was a votaress of my order: And, in the spiced Indian air, by night, Full often hath she gossip'd by my side, And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands, Marking the embarked traders on the flood, When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind; Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait Following,--her womb then rich with my young squire,-- Would imitate, and sail upon the land, To fetch me trifles, and return again, As from a voyage, rich with merchandise. But she, being mortal, of that boy did die; And for her sake do I rear up her boy, And for her sake I will not part with him.

Of what’s so secret. I’ve always been able to tell when you’re hiding something. People round here talk. Some of them work at the BSA. I’ve been talking to wives of factory hands. Detectives have been asking questions in the proofing shops. Nothing happens at that factory without you knowing about it. Speak. God and Aunt Polly are listening. Jesus, Tommy. Tell me you threw the guns in the cut. Thomas Shelby, you are a bookmaker, a robber, a fighting man, but you are not a fool. You sell those guns to anyone who has use for them, you will hang. Dump them somewhere the police can find them. When they know they haven’t fallen into the wrong hands perhaps this will blow over. Tell Charlie to dump them tonight. You’ll do the right thing. You have your mother’s common sense and your father’s devilment. I see them fighting. Let your mother win.