5 Best Once upon a Bride There Was a Forest Monologues

Once upon a Bride There Was a Forest (Belle)

Category: Play Role: Belle From: Once upon a Bride There Was a Forest

Belle says

BELLE enters. She carries MAGS who is screaming. BELLE is glowing with anticipation.

BELLE

Josie! Josie! Hold this wretched baby.

Hands MAGS to JOSIE. The crying ceases.

You are like magic. What did we ever do without you? Now listen — You’ll never guess. You’ll never ever guess. In fact don’t. Don’t guess. Just look!

BELLE holds out her hand to display a sparkling engagement ring.

The moment I saw him I knew. I knew it. He would be my own. My dearest darling. The one who would cradle me to sleep every night. And you know it wasn’t easy. You know he loved some girl who left him. Left him? Can you imagine! But. Last night — listen. Listen to what he said, he took my hand — like this.

BELLE takes JOSIE’s hand.

And then he said, “Belle, I want to marry you. I want to put a ring on your finger and wait for you at the end of an aisle and see you emerge all white dressed and flowered and I want to dance with you while our family and friends watch us and I want to love you for ever and ever until we’re old and we bicker and we smell and our apartment deteriorates around us and we fall asleep with a kiss and grow cold in the bed and everyone agrees that we had the best ever love because we died together.”

BELLE falls over in a fit of joy.

Beautiful. Isn’t that just the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to anyone ever? I mean really? Can you imagine? I said yes. I said yes immediately and he said, ‘Promise you’ll never leave me.” And I said of course I’d never leave him. I have everything I need right here. I have a wonderful family and now I have a dear husband. Why would I ever leave! I will love him and stand him and bear his children and everything! Everything! Ach! There is so much to do. We’re getting married in a fortnight! I need a dress and a cake and flowers and a party and some bridesmaids, and Mother! Mother!

BELLE exits.

Once upon a Bride There Was a Forest (Eugenia)

Category: Play Role: Eugenia From: Once upon a Bride There Was a Forest

Eugenia says

EUGENIA appears, stopping JOSIE in her path.

EUGENIA

Why so glum my dear? I’d say things are going swimmingly. Everett is very fond of you. He said just the other day what a lovely nanny you were. He is worried that you spend too much time in the house. He thinks you should get out more.

JOSIE glares at EUGENIA

What? Don’t look at me like that. I was only trying to help. You wanted this. How was I supposed to know your fiance would turn up and flip over our Belle? I’m no future-predictor type. Oh you dear girl, I know this must be difficult for you — but, you know. The choice is made and the chips fall. We make the bed and lie in it. Dig the hole ourselves and all. He said that he’d asked a girl to marry him — you? I suppose you. And that she left him the very same night, promised to return and never did. Not a call. Not a word. He said he’d been asking her to marry him for years and she always said no. So, I’d say. I’d say you’re crying over the milk you spilled yourself. Best to sop it up and get on with things. Right? Pull yourself up your bootstraps. Buck up. Commit to your choices. Tuck your doubts in your heel. That’s something there’s not enough of these days. Self-reliance. That old stick-to-it-‘ve-ness. That’s the only way anyone gets anywhere.

JOSIE nods, walks up to EUGENIA, puts BA MAGS in her arms and exits.

Josie! Josie — where are you going?

MAGS starts to cry, softly at first.

Josie — I can’t take her today we’re tasting cake! We’re auditioning bands! We’re choosing paper! Napkin rings! Centerpieces! Doilies! The Doily Lady will be here any minute!

Once upon a Bride There Was a Forest (Josie)

Category: Play Role: Josie From: Once upon a Bride There Was a Forest

Josie says

What happens when you lose your voice.

Instead of talking you choke up. Like you’re going to cry. All the time.

Just to relieve the pressure of all the things you cannot say.

And you can’t even remember why it is that you cannot say them.

You tell yourself they were stupid anyway.

Probably they would have revealed you as the fool you are.

Unfit for human understanding. Unfit for human conversation. Unfit for human anything.

So. Better to be silent. Better to go and stick your head in an oven. Or in a bowl of water. Breathe in water instead of air. Or in a pillow. Fill yourself with something different. `

Gas

Water

Feathers

Anything to fill this awful empty.

Anything.

Once upon a Bride There Was a Forest (Josie)

Category: Play Role: Josie From: Once upon a Bride There Was a Forest

Josie says

What happens when you lose your voice.

You crawl somewhere far inside yourself.

You get lost in caverns of forgotten time.

You stumble onto memories better left untouched.

You imagine that you’ve said what you’ve meant even though you never did.

You remember that even when you had your tongue, you didn’t say what you meant to say.

A lot of times you said the opposite.

And that didn’t help anyone.

But you would have said.

I love you.

I need you.

I think of you and when I think of you instead of you there’s a horrible hole in me. A hole like a forest where nothing is as it seems and nobody knows who I am and its so dark and topsy turvy that I got lost before I even started and I need your light to lead me out again.

Once upon a Bride There Was a Forest (Josie)

Category: Play Role: Josie From: Once upon a Bride There Was a Forest

Josie says

This is my father! This is my Warren! Warren — remember? Remember me? Josie? We live in an apartment an expressway? Sometimes it seems like it’s poisoned? But we won’t be there forever. You wanted to marry me but I kept saying not yet not yet but not because I didn’t love you — I loved you — I love you — but I thought I was missing something I thought I was missing my father — But now I’ve found him and it’s him but it’s not him and he doesn’t even know who I am — I don’t know — I don’t know if he’ll ever remember me.

JOSIE turns to look at EVERETT.

He looks through me. I don’t look like I used to — I’m taller. I’m changed. I’m grown and he doesn’t even know me. How could he? I’m not the kid he left. I’m a stranger standing here. And you left. You left me. Never even looked back.