Here are a couple of my favourite monologues from plays I've been in
Medea, Medea - approx. 15-20 mins
O children, children! You have a city and a home; And when we have parted there you both will stay for ever, You motherless, I miserable. And I must go to exile in another land, before I have had my joy of you, before I have seen you growing up, becoming prosperous. I shall never see your brides, adorn your bridal beds, and hold the torches high. My misery is my own heart, which will not relent. All was for nothing, then - these years of rearing you, my care, my aching weariness, and the wild pains when you were born. Oh, yes, I once built many hopes on you; imagined pitifully, that you would care for my old age and would yourselves wrap my dead body for burial. How people would envy me my sons! That sweet sad thought has faded now. Parted from you my life will be all pain and anguish. You will not look at your mother any more with these dear eyes. You will have moved into a different sphere of life.
Dear sons, why are you staring at me so? You smile at me - your last smile: why?
Oh, what am I to do? Women, my courage is all gone. Their young bright faces - I can't do it. I'll think no more of it. I'll take them away from Corinth. Why should I hurt them, to make their father suffer, when I shall suffer twice as much myself? I won't do it. I won't think of it again.
What is the matter with me? Are my enemies to laugh at me? Am I to let them off scot free? I must steel myself to do it. What a coward I am, even tempting my own resolution with soft talk.
Boys go indoors.
If there is any here who find it not lawful to present at my sacrifice, let him see to it. My hand shall not weaken.
Oh, my heart, don't, don't do it! Oh, miserable heart, let them be! Spare your children! We'll all live together safely in Athens; and they will make you happy .... No! No! No! By all the fiends of hate in hell's depths, no! I'll not leave sons of mine to be the victims of my enemies' rage. In any case there is no escape, the thing's done now. Yes now - the golden coronet is on her head, the royal bride is in her dress, dying, I know it. So, since I have a sad road to travel, and send these boys on a still sadder road, I'll speak to them. Come, children; give me your hand, dear son; yours too. Now we must say goodbye , Oh, darling hand, and darling mouth; your noble, childlike face and body! Dear sons, my blessing on you both - but there, not here! All blessing here your father has destroyed. How sweet to hold you! And children's skin is soft, and their breath pure.
Go! Go away! I can't look at you any longer; My pain is more than I can bear.
I understand the horror of what I am going to do; but anger, the spring of all life's horror, masters my resolve.
Beatie Bryant, Roots - approx. 10mins
Oh, he thinks we count alright - living in mystic communion with nature. Living in mystic bloody communion with nature (indeed). But us count? Count Mother? I wonder. Do we? Do you think we really count? You don' wanna take any notice of what them ole papers say about the workers bein' all-important these days - that's all squit! 'Cos we aren't. Do you think when the really talented people in the country get to work they get to work for us? Hell if they do! Do you think they don't know we 'ont make the effort? The writers don't write thinkin' we can understand, nor the painters don't paint expecting us to be interested - that they don't, nor don't the composers give out music thinking we can appreciate it. 'Blust', they say, 'the masses is too stupid for us to come down to them. Blust,' they say, 'if they don't make no effort why should we bother?' So you know who come along? The slop singers and the pop writers and the film makers and women's magazines and the Sunday papers and the picture strip love stories - that's who come along, and you don't have to make no effort for them, it come easy. 'We know where the money lie', they say. 'hell we do! The workers've got it so let's give them what they want. If they want slop songs and film idols we'll give 'em that then. If they want words of one syllable, we'll give 'em that then. If they want the third-rate, blust! We'll give 'em that then. Anything's good enough for them 'cos they don't ask for no more!' The whole stinkin' commercial world insults us and we don't care a damn. Well, Ronnie's right - it's our own bloody fault. We want the third-rate- we got it! We got it! We got it! We...
D'you hear that? D'you hear it? Did you listen to me? I'm talking. Jenny, Frankie, Mother - I'm not quoting no more.
Listen to me someone. God in heaven Ronnie! It does work, it's happening to me, I can feel it's happened, I'm beginning, on my own two feet - I'm beginning...
