871 Best Play Monologues – Page 3 of 88

ubu (Ubu)

Category: Play Role: Ubu From: ubu

Ubu says

Wine! Wine! Wine! Wine! Wine! Wine! Wine! Wine! Wine! Wine! Wine!

(The SERVANT brings UBU wine. UBU drinks.)

A very good vintage. I would offer it to you, of course, but it would ruin you.

What else can I tell you before I fire you? Ooop. Did I say that out loud? Were you paying attention? Forget I said that. Maybe I won’t even do it. Who knows. I meant to say, what else can I tell you for your edification to help you continue to work for me?

When I was a child . . . nononono. Don’t look at me like that. I’m not some kind of animal. I’m not some kind of -I was in love once. Is that what you want to hear? It was a blemish on my career. A black spot on my rise to fame and fortune. All the profits I tried to make, she tried to take away. She wanted me to use my money to clothe people and feed people and house people and help them farm and get them clean water and give them small loans and artist grants. And I did everything she wanted. Because of love.

(The memory of the woman he loved comes out. Played a servant? A life-sized marionette? UBU and she dance together. It is haunting and strangely beautiful.)

She was…

beautiful.

heavenly.

Her feet never touched the ground.

She made the most powerful men self conscious.

She was put together like no other.

Just meat and bone, but better. More human. Like she was built from sunlight and air.

Her existence was proof of God.

She had my heart in her hand.

And then she died.

Cancer.

(Marionette or Actor falls to the ground.)

People told me to fund Cancer research. Fuck that. I’m not giving up any more to cancer. CANCER ALREADY TOOK EVERYTHING!

ubu (ubu)

Category: Play Role: Ubu From: ubu

ubu says

My childhood was very unhappy but it was also lonely. All I had was a pet dead cat and my nightmares to keep me company in my tiny locked closet. I don’t want to blame anybody but it was probably my mother’s fault. I’m not saying she was a terrible mother, but she definitely was.

I’m not complaining. Look at me. I’m the most successful man ever. (He thinks about this for a minute. Sad.) Ever.

Don’t look at me like that. Is that pity? I am not a man to be pitied! Not like you. There on the bottom, surviving off the scraps I throw you. Not literally. I mean, not from this table. It would ruin you. We mustn’t do that. What? You don’t believe me?

(Tosses a small piece of steak to the ground.)

Go on. Eat it. Crawl up here on your hands and knees and eat it off the ground like a dog. Go on. Go on. I’ll wait. Go on. No?

ubu (ubu)

Category: Play Role: Ubu From: ubu

ubu says

Ah hem. The first poem is entitled, “Ode To A Field Of Daisies.”

A field of daisies

On a sunny day

Reminds me

You have to take what you want

The world owes you nothing

Take

Thank you.

(If they don’t clap.) Aren’t you going to clap? (When they do clap.) That wasn’t much of an applause. Did you want to try that again? (after) That wasn’t much better.

This next one is called, “The Soul of a Poet.”

The dying begins when you are born

They try to hurt you right away

with insults and cigarette burns

They will tear you down if you build yourself up

They will rip you your asshole if you get out of line

All of everything and everybody is against you

That is what living is

And dying is giving up

But we have no choice

You start dying as soon as you’re born

I like the taste of honey

Thank you.

(after applause or lack of applause.)

Is that it? I don’t know if you even deserve another poem. But I’m feeling generous.

This one is called, “I hate you, Mommy.”

I just adore the springtime

I love a good Cuban cigar

Sunlight is my favorite kind of light

Have you ever seen a butterfly

Come out of its cocoon?

Or a moth for that matter flitting around a light?

Or a sunset over a stark white beach

I hate you Mommy.

Thank you.

Uncle Vanya (Sonia)

Category: Play Role: Sonia From: Uncle Vanya

Sonia says

What can we do? We must live our lives. Yes, we shall live, Uncle Vanya. We shall live through the long procession of days before us, and through the long evenings; we shall patiently bear the trials that fate imposes on us; we shall work for others without rest, both now and when we are old; and when our last hour comes we shall meet it humbly, and there, beyond the grave, we shall say that we have suffered and wept, that our life was bitter, and God will have pity on us. Ah, then dear, dear Uncle, we shall see that bright and beautiful life; we shall rejoice and look back upon our sorrow here; a tender smile -and -we shall rest. I have faith, Uncle, fervent, passionate faith. We shall rest. We shall rest. We shall hear the angels. We shall see heaven shining like a jewel. We shall see all evil and all our pain sink away in the great compassion that shall enfold the world. Our life will be as peaceful and tender and sweet as a caress. I have faith; I have faith. My poor, poor Uncle Vanya, you are crying! You have never known what happiness was, but wait, Uncle Vanya, wait! We shall rest. We shall rest. We shall rest.

Uncle Vanya (Yelena)

Category: Play Role: Yelena From: Uncle Vanya

Yelena says

There is no greater sorrow than to know another’s secret when you cannot help them. He is obviously not in love with her, but why shouldn’t he marry her? She is not pretty, but she is so clever and pure and good, she would make a splendid wife for a country doctor of his years. I can understand how the poor child feels. She lives here in this desperate loneliness with no one around her except these colourless shadows that go mooning about talking nonsense and knowing nothing except that they eat, drink, and sleep. Among them appears from time to time this Dr. Astroff, so different, so handsome, so interesting, so charming. It is like seeing the moon rise on a dark night. Oh, to surrender oneself to his embrace! To lose oneself in his arms! I am a little in love with him myself! Yes, I am lonely without him, and when I think of him I smile. That Uncle Vanya says I have the blood of a Nixey in my veins: “Give rein to your nature for once in your life!” Perhaps it is right that I should. Oh, to be free as a bird, to fly away from all your sleepy faces and your talk and forget that you have existed at all! But I am a coward, I am afraid; my conscience torments me. He comes here every day now. I can guess why, and feel guilty already; I should like to fall on my knees at Sonia’s feet and beg her forgiveness, and weep.

Two Gentlemen of Verona (Julia)

Category: Play Role: Julia From: Two Gentlemen of Verona

Julia says

The more thou damm’st it up, the more it burns.
The current that with gentle murmur glides,
Thou know’st, being stopp’d, impatiently doth rage;
But when his fair course is not hindered,
He makes sweet music with the enamell’ed stones,
Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge
He overtaketh in his pilgrimage,
And so many winding nooks he strays
With willing sport to the wild ocean.
Then let me go and hinder not my course
I’ll be as patient as a gentle stream
And make a pastime of each weary step,
Till the last step have brought me to my love;
And there I’ll rest, as after much turmoil
A blessed soul doth in Elysium.

Two Gentlemen of Verona (Proteus)

Category: Play Role: Proteus From: Two Gentlemen of Verona

Proteus says

Say that upon the altar of her beauty
You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart:
Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears
Moist it again, and frame some feeling line
That may discover such integrity:
For Orpheus’ lute was strung with poets’ sinews,
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,
Make tigers tame and huge leviathans
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.
After your dire-lamenting elegies,
Visit night your lady’s chamber-window
With some sweet concert; to their instruments
Tune a deploring dump: the night’s dead silence
Will well become such sweet-complaining grievance.
This, or else nothing, will inherit her.

Two Gentlemen of Verona (Proteus)

Category: Play Role: Proteus From: Two Gentlemen of Verona

Proteus says

To leave my Julia, shall I be forsworn;
To love fair Silvia, shall I be forsworn;
To wrong my friend, I shall be much forsworn;
And even that power which gave me first my oath
Provokes me to this threefold perjury;
Love bade me swear and Love bids me forswear.
O sweet-suggesting Love, if thou hast sinned,
Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it!
At first I did adore a twinkling star,
But now I worship a celestial sun.
Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken,
And he wants wit that wants resolved will
To learn his wit to exchange the bad for better.
Fie, fie, unreverend tongue! to call her bad,
Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferr’d
With twenty thousand soul-confirming oaths.
I cannot leave to love, and yet I do;
But there I leave to love where I should love.
Julia I lose and Valentine I lose:
If I keep them, I needs must lose myself;
If I lose them, thus find I their loss
For Valentine myself, for Julia Silvia.
I to myself am dearer than a friend,
For love is still most precious in itself;
And Silvia–witness Heaven, that made her fair!–
Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope.
I will forget that Julia is alive,
Remembering that my love to her is dead;
And Valentine I’ll hold an enemy,
Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend.
I cannot now prove constant to myself,
Without some treachery used to Valentine.
This night he meaneth with a corded ladder
To climb celestial Silvia’s chamber-window,
Myself in counsel, his competitor.
Now presently I’ll give her father notice
Of their disguising and pretended flight;
Who, all enraged, will banish Valentine;
For Thurio, he intends, shall wed his daughter;
But, Valentine being gone, I’ll quickly cross
some sly trick blunt Thurio’s dull proceeding.
Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift,
As thou hast lent me wit to plot this drift!

Two Gentlemen of Verona (Silvia)

Category: Play Role: Silvia From: Two Gentlemen of Verona

Silvia says

O Eglamour, thou art a gentleman
Think not I flatter, for I swear I do not
Valiant, wise, remorseful, well accomplish’d:
Thou art not ignorant what dear good will
I bear unto the banish’d Valentine,
Nor how my father would enforce me marry
Vain Thurio, whom my very soul abhors.
Thyself hast loved; and I have heard thee say
No grief did ever come so near thy heart
As when thy lady and thy true love died,
Upon whose grave thou vow’dst pure chastity.
Sir Eglamour, I would to Valentine,
To Mantua, where I hear he makes abode;
And, for the ways are dangerous to pass,
I do desire thy worthy company,
Upon whose faith and honour I repose.
Urge not my father’s anger, Eglamour,
But think upon my grief, a lady’s grief,
And on the justice of my flying hence,
To keep me from a most unholy match,
Which heaven and fortune still rewards with plagues.
I do desire thee, even from a heart
As full of sorrows as the sea of sands,
To bear me company and go with me:
If not, to hide what I have said to thee,
That I may venture to depart alone.

Two Gentlemen of Verona (Valentine)

Category: Play Role: Valentine From: Two Gentlemen of Verona

Valentine says

Ay, Proteus, but that life is alter’d now:
I have done penance for contemning Love,
Whose high imperious thoughts have punish’d me
With bitter fasts, with penitential groans,
With nightly tears and daily heart-sore sighs;
For in revenge of my contempt of love,
Love hath chased sleep from my enthralled eyes
And made them watchers of mine own heart’s sorrow.
O gentle Proteus, Love’s a mighty lord,
And hath so humbled me, as, I confess,
There is no woe to his correction,
Nor to his service no such joy on earth.
Now no discourse, except it be of love;
Now can I break my fast, dine, sup and sleep,
Upon the very naked name of love.