Monologues of the Moment

[crayauchtin]

As part of my preparation for my audition on Tuesday (which I'm totally freaking out about), I'd like to take a moment to type, from memory, my two monologues. I have two minutes to perform them (and as such the second one has been significantly edited!)

The first is from The Tempest by William Shakespeare and is delivered by the character Caliban (and no I will not be attempting to put in the line breaks where Shakespeare put them, I'm just not that concerned with it ):

Be not afeared. This isle is home to sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not. Sometime, a thousand twangling instruments do hum about mine ears.
And sometimes voices that, if I then had waked after long sleep, would make me sleep again. And then, in dreaming, the clouds me thought would open and show riches ready to drop upon me that when I waked, I cried to dream again.

The second monolgue is from the play Angels Fall by Lanford Wilson (and was edited by me ) and is delivered by the character Zappy:

Like when I found out I was a tennis player.
No, no joke. I went to church, I lit a candle. Really. I said my novenas, man.
I was in like the fifth grade and I was watching these two hamburgers out on some practice court and they take break and one of them hands me his racket. So I throw up a toss like I seen them do and ZAP! Three inches over the net, two inches inside the line!
Man, you should have heard them razz me. "Man you suck!" and other things you can't repeat in front of a priest.
Then one guy shows me a backhand grip and hits one at me and ZAP! Right down the line! And the thing is, that's where I wanted it. I saw it coming at me and I said "I'm gonna backhand this sucker right down the line!" And I did!
So they packed up their balls and left. I don't blame them. No high school hotshot wants to be shown up by some eleven year old creep who's built like a parking meter.
But from the moment I hit that first ball, I knew. I said "This is me. This is what I do. What I do is tennis." And once you know, there's no way out. You've been showed something. Even if it's just tennis, you can't turn around and say you wasn't showed that.
So I went to church and I said my novenas for those two meatballs, cause they didn't know they'd been my angels. And on the way home, if anybody's stopped me and asked "What do yo do?" I'd have said right there, "I play tennis." Didn't know love from lob, didn't matter. Tennis is what I am. And once you know what you are, the rest if just work.

I think the trick to this audition is gonna be to talk fast in the second monologue and just... make it part of the character.

[Rosella]

...Interesting monologues.

What are you auditioning for?

[Haids1987]

I love Shakespeare.   He's my man.  And I love The Tempest!

Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
And what strength I have's mine own,
Which is most faint: now, 'tis true,
I must be here confined by you,
Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got,
And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell
In this bare island by your spell.
But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands.

[crayauchtin]

...Interesting monologues.

What are you auditioning for?

It's a touring theater company.

[Haids1987]

Wooo!  Best of luck to ye!  Maybe I'll see you when you're in the Emerald City.

[awesomeasapossum]

I've had this one memorized since some friends and I put on a performance of 'ART' this summer.

So, a crisis, insoluble problem, major crisis, both step-mothers want their names on the wedding invitation. Catherine adores her step-mother who more or less brought her up, she wants her name on the invitation, she wants it and her step-mother is not anticipating, which is understandable since her mother is dead, not appearing next to Catherine's father, where as my step-mother, whom I detest, it's out of the question, her name should appear on the invitation, but my father won't have his name on it unless Catherine's step-mother's name is taken off of it, which is completely unacceptable, I suggested that none of the parents' names be on it, after all, we're not adolescents, we can announce our own wedding and invite people ourselves, so Catherine screams her head off, arguing that would be a slap in the face of her parents, who are paying through the nose for the reception, and particularly for her step-mother, who's gone to so much trouble when she isn't even her daughter, and so I finally let myself be persuaded, totally against my judgment because she wore me down, I finally agreed that my step-mother, whom I detest, who's a complete b*tch will have her name on the wedding invitation, so I telephone my mother to warn her, mother, i said, I've done absolutely everything I can to avoid this but I have no choice, Collette's name must appear on the wedding invitation, and she said, If Collette's name is on the invitation, take mine off it, mother, I said, please, don't make things even more difficult than they already are, and she said, how dare you suggest that my name be left off the card to float around on its own, as if I was some abandoned old women, below Collette, who'll have her name clamped onto your father's like a limpet, mother I said, please, I have friends waiting, I'm going to hang up the phone and we can discuss all this tomorrow after a good night's rest, why is it I'm always an afterthought?, mother you're not always an afterthought, of course I am and when you say don't make things even more difficult, what you really mean is everything's already been decided, everything's been organized without me, everything's been cooked up behind me back, good old Nadia, she'll agree to everything--and all this, she said, get this--in aid of an event, the importance of which I'm having some trouble grasping, mother I have friends waiting, that's right anything's more important than I am, goodbye, and she hung up. Catherine who was standing next to me but who hadn't heard her side of the conversation said, what'd she say?, I said, she doesn't want her name on the invitation with Collette which is understandable, I'm not talking about that, what did she say about the wedding, nothing, you're lying, no, I'm not Cathy, I promise you, she just doesn't want her name on the invitation with Collette, well you call your mother back and tell her that when your son is getting married, you rise above your vanity, you could say the same thing to your mother, it's not her, it's me, the poor dear, she's tact personified if she had any idea the trouble this was causing she'd be on her knees, begging to be taken off the invitation, now call your mother, so I call my mother, by now I'm in shreds, Catherine's listening from the extension, Yvan, my mother says, up until now you've conducted your affairs in the most chaotic way imaginable, and just because, out of the blue, you've decided to embark on matrimony, I find myself obliged to spend all afternoon and evening with your father, a man whom I haven't seen it thirteen years and to whom which I was not expecting to have to reveal my hip size or my puffy cheeks, not to mention Collette, who incidentally, according to Felix Perolari, has taken up bridge--my mother always played bridge--now, I can see all this can't be helped, but on the wedding invitation, the one item everyone will receive and examine, I insist on making a solo appearance, mother, why are you so selfish, I'm not selfish, I'm not selfish Yvan, you're not going to start, too, you're not going to be like Madame Romero this morning and say that I have a heart of stone, that everyone in our family has a heart of stone, that's what she said this morning--she's gone completely insane by the way--when I refused to raise her pay to sixty francs an hour cash, she had the gall to say that everyone in our family has a heart of stone, when she knows perfectly well about poor Andre's pacemaker, oh that's right Yvan, you haven't even bothered to call him, that's right, everything's a joke to you, I'm not the selfish one Yvan, you still have a lot to learn about life, but go on, go ahead, go ahead, go and see your precious friends...

[Haids1987]

What about Juliet's monologue when she finds out that Romeo murdered Tybalt?

Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?
Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name
When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?
But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?
That villain cousin would have killed my husband.
Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring!
Your tributary drops belong to woe,
Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy.
My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain;
And Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my husband.
All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?
Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's death,
That murd'red me. I would forget it fain;
But O, it presses to my memory
Like damnèd guilty deeds to sinners' minds!
'Tybalt is dead, and Romeo--banishèd!'
That 'banishèd,' that one word 'banishèd,'
Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death
Was woe enough, if it had ended there;
Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship
And needly will be ranked with other griefs,
Why followèd not, when she said 'Tybalt's dead,'
Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both,
Which modern lamentation might have moved?
But with a rearward following Tybalt's death,
'Romeo is banishèd'--to speak that word
Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,
All slain, all dead. 'Romeo is banishèd'--
There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,
In that word's death; no words can that woe sound.

*Happy tears*  Shakespeare chokes me up. 

[crayauchtin]

This is a sick GEM of a monologue I found on monologueblogger.com
I have no idea who wrote it or what it may or may not be from but, it thrills the part of me that enjoys playing villains so very much.

Do I like killing people? Did Picasso like to paint? Eh? Hahahaha! Come on now kid, don't ask me stupid questions over here. Everybody's good at something in their life, some people find it, other people don't. I found what I'm good at. A natural. But like all art forms it takes practice, work, and dedication. You have to have passion for it, or why bother?

It is an art form, what I do. I approach it in a similar fashion as a writer writes a novel or a painter paints a painting. s*** like that. I am very particular when I kill somebody. I like to be neat and efficient. Now I'm not saying I won't leave a bloody mess! I've flung body parts all over a room, just to make a point. You see, although a killing may look messy it was done with the utmost tender care. I put a lot of preparation into my work, you know. A lot of time and thought gets put into what I do.

I like using the word killing, not murder. Murder takes the art out of it, but a killing has a nice, I don't know, ring to it. It has more class, I think. It may be hard for you to understand, but I guess you gotta kill a few people to get it.

My life just gravitated this way. I started reading books about killers and studied the ways of a killing. I've never been caught, my whole life. And I never will. Why? Because I played my cards right. I never cared to be famous like other gangsters. I feel the best ones go down without making themselves known.
That's class, and that, I love.

Sweet dreams guys.