871 Best Play Monologues

When Is a Clock (Cop)

Category: Play Role: Cop From: When Is a Clock

Cop says

Crime statistics. The average person is married twice, and the average marriage contains seven steps, and the average marriage has around two children and the average child of those marriages spends an average of four hours watching two to four television programs on five nights a week. More than half of that time is spent watching violent crime, and of the twelve courtroom dramas currently dominating the networks prime time slots, they watch 276 variations of criminal actions, based on a 23 episode season. That is only counting the central act of criminality within the drama, not counting ethical lapses or more minor crimes in support of, or to dispel, the central crime in question.

(Pause.)

When, when, when you expose one half of one half of all Americans to four hours of around three hundred murders, rapes, kidnappings and assaults over the course of a season of television, you’re going to create precisely, and we have this figure available on our website, around 500,000 potential major felons a night, of which exactly 45,678 will commit crimes within ten years of right now.

(Pause.)

How should we find your wife? With all this happening just because of television?

(Pause.)

What about red tape and just overall numbers? Every second, 200 babies die in this county alone. 200 babies. Die. In this county alone. Three hundred people lose watches every ten minutes in 38 states. There are 20 different versions of the law that protects three different ethnicities from twelve kinds of discriminatory lending practices. Food poisoning, from nearly 600 controlled substances, just hit the digestive system of two women. As we spoke. Their names are Janet and Janet. Both of them named Janet. What are the odds? Actually, very, very good, if you consider how improbable a life-sustaining atmosphere even is. 89 times, in the course of just walking in this door, I envisioned a crime committed against me a person that worked in an orphanage when I was only nine. Why did I see that in

my mind so often? Biological signals sent from my brain, sense-memory. 91 times now. It just keeps happening. That person was never arrested, but was killed. You can’t prove how. How could you? There’s just too much to keep track of.

(Pause.)

Over the course of the last month, it was discovered that people’s names were being spelled in a wantonly confusing way but a large number of ethnic minorities in order to confound governmental databases. You think it’s easy to track people way of their social security number? Of course you’d think so? That’s because you don’t know that there are two million people in this country whose social security number is precisely the same as two million other people. How do you think that affects their records when they die? It’s not pretty. Of course it’s not pretty. In fact, despite what you may believe, according to Federal Databases, because of this Social Security glitch, more than half of those four million people are deceased. 14 million Mexicans just entered this country. 15 million. 16 million. All without social security numbers, most of them less than 5 feet 5 inches tall. How are we going to find them and bury them? Do we just toss them in the Pacific Ocean? No, no we don’t. That’s how we hope to fuel agriculture. But there are so, so many. So many.

(Pause.)

Where is your wife?

Where You Can’t Follow (Josette)

Category: Play Role: Josette From: Where You Can't Follow

Josette says

Do you? Look, you are here how long?

A week at least?

After a week with me, you will want to marry me.

I need you to know now, I cannot marry you. I am a better lover than a wife.

I am giving you a gift, can you understand? The gift of my love.

But it is all I can give.

Now you say “okay” but later you will try to get me to marry you. I would suggest you not try this. It would be the end of us. When a man asks me to marry him I have to say goodbye. I am serious. Marriage is a death to me. Do you want me to die?

Then when you feel yourself want to ask for marriage with me, you must think twice. You understand?

You make jokes but it is not funny. I have to beat off my suitors with a tree.

Where You Can’t Follow (Josette)

Category: Play Role: Josette From: Where You Can't Follow

Josette says

People confuse love and romance. Romance is good, very nice. But love, love is necessary. See this? The moon, the stars, the lights over the water. The Pont Neuf. The Eiffel Tower. Candlelight there. Chocolates, small presents. All of this is romantic, no? But this is not love. I take a knife, I kill myself because you don’t love me. This is love. The most powerful love you feel will be after it has gone away.

It’s pain.

Yes, but love is also pleasure. The most pleasure there is in the world so when it leaves, you want to take a knife and kill yourself. No? You don’t know. It’s because you don’t know love.

Where You Can’t Follow (Josette)

Category: Play Role: Josette From: Where You Can't Follow

Josette says

I will tell you a story. I have. (an interjection of pleasure) Mmm. A ritual. I like to tell this story the first time -with someone. Yes! It is -the story of true love. It is harder in English, but I will try. Oooh. One day, a caterpillar was caterpillering along when she came upon a worm. Mmm. She had never seen such a beautiful sight before. She fell in love with the worm right then. The worm, he did not care for her. He was blind. Mmm. And he only cared about the dirt. He dug into the ground, but she followed him. Uuh. He said go away, but she would not. He said, I have no use for you. But still she followed wherever he went. Finally, she wore him down. Mmm. He started to see things about her that he liked. Like the stripes on her -OH -back and her many legs. He started to miss her when she wasn’t around. This is not normal love. This is a backdoor, surprise love. And no one was more surprised than the worm. AHH. Their affair was horrid. No. Torrid?

But then one day, when the worm…Mmm…awoke, she was gone. He looked everywhere. UUH. In the ground. Ahh. Somewhere else in the ground. Everywhere he could think. Oooh. But nowhere. This went on for a long time. Ahh. Every day he looked but she was gone. One day, while he was looking, a beautiful butterfly floated by. “Terrence,” the butterfly said, because that was the worm’s name. ” Terrence!” Ahh. But the worm ignored the butterfly. “Go away he said. I’m looking for my lover.” She said “I am your lover.” OOOOOoooh. Mmm. And he said, no. My lover can’t fly. My lover doesn’t look like you. Ah. And she said this is what I have become. So. Oh. They tried to get back in their routines. Mmmm. But she also wanted to fly. Hm. She wanted to be in the ground with him but she wanted to be floating on the wind too. Uunn. She was not at all happy. Then one day, AAhhh–a bird came down -Oooh–and plucked the worm from the ground. Aaaaa! “Terrence!” Aa! She said. Ooh. You can fly now. WOOO! And for a few seconds -EEEE—they both flew, UUUH– side side. It was the most beautiful MMM feeling MMM they had ever known. And then the bird ate the worm. AAAAAAGH! (She comes) And that is what love is.

Where You Can’t Follow (Josette)

Category: Play Role: Josette From: Where You Can't Follow

Josette says

The story of you is that mmm you came to find me because you wanted to find love. But you didn’t know what love was. Aahh. So I tried to show you all the important faucets of love. I showed you romance and you showed me pain. Ooh. I thought I could live a life with only pleasure and no attachments. You lived a life without pleasure. And we tried to help each other. But then, you were to die and leave me and I couldn’t mmm take it. So I ran away. But that is not love. Noooo. Running away. Love is staying. Being there while you die. So I am here for that. Aaah Even if I think I cannot take it. It is what must happen. Mmmm. Because you are showing me that I should not be selfish. And I become a better person and I learn better mmm. What love is. AAAHhhh.

(They come. He dies.)

Matt? Matt? No. Matt?

(But he is dead. She climbs off him. She bites her hand to keep from crying, if she can.)

You left me.

Where You Can’t Follow (Josette)

Category: Play Role: Josette From: Where You Can't Follow

Josette says

Over here it’s the cafe where I first kissed a boy. His breath was like a sleeping kitten. But his lips were nice. Over there, the school I went to as a child. Sometimes they made me cry, but sometimes I was the bully. You know? Here the corner I smoked my first cigarette. I hated it but I pretended. There, I scored my first goal. And also we played football. Soccer, yes?

Down the street my best friend, Jean slapped me on the face one Saturday.

It’s hard to remember. I do know, it hurts more to be slapped a friend. All of this, it is my home. For you it is tourism.

Voices (Voice)

Category: Play Role: Voice From: Voices

Voice says

Women of all the earth shall be Jeanne’s strength.
And she shall go to them,
In peasant clothes–a maid!
And where she finds a woman at her toil,
She’ll stop and say,
“Would you have back your dead?”
And their answer they shall follow Jeanne,
Until her army, swelling like a flood,
Pours down the earth undammed.
What can the kings build up against this tide,
The woe and rage, impatience and despair
Of all the witheld women of all years,
Borne down on them at last?
What can they do, if men no longer mad,
But grim with agony and blood and death,
Leap from the trenches, break the mighty guns,
And with the women turn their faces home?
O, in that hour the puny kings shall see
As some great mountain blotting out the sun,
The shadow of our wrath,
And know defeat–all kings alike–
But people shall be free!

Voices (Yvonne)

Category: Play Role: Yvonne From: Voices

Yvonne says

Jeanne D’Arc would make an end of war.
She’d stop the guns!
When she was just a girl — alone and mocked,
She took a sword and flashed it through the land,
Until she pressed the foe upon the sea.
And would she not today?
Shall one love France the less for being safe
In Paradise? Jeanne D’Arc would make an end of war.
She’d stop the guns!
When she was just a girl — alone and mocked,
She took a sword and flashed it through the land,
Until she pressed the foe upon the sea.
And would she not today?
Shall one love France the less for being safe
In Paradise?

War Brides (Hedwig)

Category: Play Role: Hedwig From: War Brides

Hedwig says

What will happen to Amelia? Have you thought of that? No; I warrant you haven’t. Well, look. A few kisses and sweet words, the excitement of the ceremony, the cheers of the crowd, some days of living together, -I won’t call it marriage, for Franz and I are the ones who know what real marriage is, and how sacred it is, -then what? Before you know it, an order to march. Amelia left to wait for her child. No husband to wait with her, to watch over her. Think of her anxiety, if she learns to love you! What kind of child will it be? Look at me. What kind of child would I have, do you think? I can hardly breathe for thinking of my Franz, waiting, never knowing from minute to minute. From the way I feel, I should think my child would be born mad, I’m that wild with worrying. And then for Amelia to go through the agony alone! No husband to help her through the terrible hour. What solace can the state give then? And after that, if you don’t come back, who is going to earn the bread for her child? Struggle and struggle to feed herself and her child; and the fine-sounding name you trick us with -war bride! Humph! that will all be forgotten then. Only one thing can make it worth while, and do you know what that is? Love. We’ll struggle through fire and water for that; but without it –

ubu (Ubu)

Category: Play Role: Ubu From: ubu

Ubu says

How I became King of the Great Expanding Universe. Yes. Yes.

I was not always King of the Great Expanding Universe. My father was not the King of the Great Expanding Universe. In fact, back then, there was no King of the Great Expanding Universe. The universe was just a series of unrelated non-governed or socialist, communist, anarchist, hedonist, neo-realist or vaguely democratic republican principalities, which is to say, oligarchies. How then did I ever become the King of the Great Expanding Universe? Surely not being elected. No, the secret, is -I feel like I can tell you the secret -can you keep a secret? Well, YOU BETTER. The secret is I did it all through misinformation, intimidation, brute force, deceit, murder, bribery, theft, breaking laws, changing laws, murder . . . did I say murder? Misinformation, teaching the people to blame themselves for their own misfortune.

First you create a corporation. It can even be a small corporation. But it must be profitable. Then you buy up another corporation. You don’t need to have all the money to do so. Be sure to outsource the labor to children and those in poverty so that your profits will be high. Then you buy your first politician. I remember the day I bought my first politician. That was a good day. The pride I felt. Buy more politicians and more corporations. Diversify. Don’t just own an oil company. Own the phones and the newspapers and the television and housing and the grocery stores and the cable and the cars and the internet and the small countries. Continue ad infinitum. And don’t be afraid of brute force. You can start a war to make money. You don’t even have to win. You can do anything as long as you own enough politicians. What is important is you must never back down. Crush them. You must crush them. Crush them! Crush them! Crush them! Crush them! Aaaaaahhh.