2 Best Gentleman Monologues

Category: Play Role: Gentleman From: Thirst

Gentleman says

You were very beautiful.

I was looking at you and wondering what kind of a woman you were. You know I had never met you personally–only seen you in my walks around the deck.

Then came the crash–that horrible dull crash. We were all thrown forward on the floor of the salon; then screams, oaths, fainting women, the hollow boom of a bulkhead giving way. I vaguely remember rushing to my stateroom and picking up my wallet. It must have been that menu that I took instead. Then I was on deck fighting in the midst of the crowd. Somehow I got into a boat–but it was overloaded and was swamped immediately. I swam to another boat. They beat me off with the oars. That boat too was swamped a moment later. And then the gurgling, choking cries of the drowning! Something huge rushed me in the water, leaving a gleaming trail of phosphorescence.

A woman near me with a life belt around her gave a cry of agony and disappeared–then I realized–sharks! I became frenzied with terror. I swam. I beat the water with my hands. The ship had gone down. I swam and swam with but one idea–to put all that horror behind me. I saw something white on the water before me. I clutched it–climbed on it. It was this raft. You and he were on it.

I fainted. The whole thing is a horrible nightmare in my brain–but I remember clearly that idiotic remark of the woman in the salon. What pitiful creatures we are!

Category: Play Role: Gentleman From: Thirst

Gentleman says

You must not despair so. I, too, might whine a prayer of protest: Oh God, God! After twenty years of incessant grind, day after weary day, I started on my first vacation. I was going home. And here I sit dying slow degrees, desolate and forsaken. Is this the meaning of all my years of labor?

Is this the end, oh God? So I might wail with equal justice. But the blind sky will not answer your appeals or mine. Nor will the cruel sea grow merciful for any prayer of ours. I have not given up hope.

These seas, I have heard, are full of coral islands and we surely ought to drift near one of them soon. It was probably an uncharted coral reef that our steamer hit.

I heard someone say “derelict” but I saw no sign of one in the water. With us it is only a question of whether we can hold out until we sight land.

Water would save us — just a little water — even a few drops would be enough.

God, if we only had a little water!