70 Best Adam Szymkowicz Monologues

Mercy (Orville)

Category: Play Role: Orville From: Mercy

Orville says

It was my wife you hit with your fucking car. She just went out to get milk. It should have been me you hit instead. We had an argument. It was a long day and I had just come home and she was like, ‚ÄúCan you go to the store?‚Äù and I yelled at her like an asshole. She said, ‚ÄúFine, I’ll do it.‚Äù I should have stopped her. But I was a lazy piece of shit and I let her walk out the door with her big swollen belly. If it had been me, maybe I could have got out of the way when you ran the red light. She couldn’t move as fast because she was carrying our child. Or maybe not. Maybe I’d be dead too. Either way, it should have been me. But it wasn’t. So now I’m here with this gun. (beat) So what do you have to say for yourself?

Mercy (Ian)

Category: Play Role: Ian From: Mercy

Ian says

I feel like such a fucking idiot. You come over looking for a friend and I’m . . . I guess I thought . . . I’ve always had this problem. It’s not just you. Sometimes you see the signals you want to see instead of the signals that are actually there. I used to ask. I used to say, ‚Äúcan I kiss you now‚Äù but it’s so unromantic. So unspontaneous. I just thought . . . But yeah. Sorry about that. I guess I needed you to want that whether or not you did. I guess I just really need something right now. This whole thing has been really fucked up. Not just being sober, but . . . I was a whole different person. I never thought I’d be the kind of person who — It’s been really hard to get through the day. I stopped drinking because I had to. I couldn’t keep going that way but now I’m trying to figure out how to keep living, you know? I’m running out of reasons to stay alive. Not that — I’m sorry. This isn’t your problem. You don’t want to hear this. Right? Ted? Are you still there?

Mercy (Orville)

Category: Play Role: Orville From: Mercy

Orville says

(ORVILLE talking to the ba who is in a bassinet or carrier)

It’s a good idea, they say, to talk to you, even though you don’t know what I’m saying. I wish you would cry. It’s not right. People tell me I’m lucky that you’re not crying all night and all day, but still, it’s not natural not to cry at all. The doctors say there’s nothing wrong with you but I don’t trust doctors anymore and you shouldn’t either.

You could say something. Tell me when you’re wet or hungry. Just say, ‚ÄúHey!‚Äù Can you say that? Hey! Hey. Say, ‚ÄúHey!‚Äù Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Just say it. Like me. Hey. Hey. Hey. Or, you know, something else. I don’t have to control you. You could say ‚ÄúDad.‚Äù Da-da. Da-da. Dad. Dad. Da-da.

Okay, well, whenever you’re ready. Just don’t, I mean you don’t have to hold back on my account. Too many people are not being themselves around me anymore. Feel free to cry and scream and just let go. Neighbors be damned.

No one expected you to live. You’re a miracle, you know that? And you’re fine. They say everything is fine. So go ahead and cry your lungs out. God knows you have reason enough. (pause) No?

(He begins to cry, at first modeling behavior for the ba and then really getting into it.)

ORVILLE

Anhh! Anhh! Anhhh! ANHHH! ANHHH! ANHHHH! ANHHH! ANHHH! ANHHHH! ANHHHHHHHHH!

(BLACKOUT)

Kodachrome (Robert)

Category: Play Role: Robert From: Kodachrome

Robert says

I’m looking for books on marriage. How to have a good marriage. What to do. What not to do. How to be a good husband. How to love the right way. How to best make love. Not fiction, mind you. Or the things on the internet. More like old knowledge. The things our souls know that long ago were shared word of mouth generation after generation and then recorded hand and translated into a thousand languages but have been forgotten. Maybe some of the new science too. But not based on one small study and not pseudoscience and not a series of essays written on deadline someone who doesn’t know enough, who knows how to write but doesn’t know how to think. Also. How to be a good father. Not the trends. Not the sexism. Or maybe some of the sexism but the kind in which it is easily recognized as such. How to be a good person. How to live life the right way. I feel like I’m trying to start my life finally with the right person and I want to try not to make too many mistakes and I want to be happy or if not happy, the other thing that we’re supposed to be. Of use? Worthwhile? Honest? I want to be vulnerable and love completely. Do you have a book like that?

Kodachrome (Suzanne)

Category: Play Role: Suzanne From: Kodachrome

Suzanne says

It was never supposed to happen. Or it was never supposed to last long. When I asked him out, he said yes to make her mad. Probably. I wasn’t supposed to get pregnant. Definitely.

We got married right away. Quickly, quietly. Days turned to weeks. Weeks turned to love.

He turned down his scholarship. He took over the family business. The future Librarian went to college. And then my ba came and she was stillborn. We mourned. Instead of driving us apart, we grew closer together. After two more miscarriages, we stopped trying. The future Librarian came back from college and got a job at the library. And then life and life and life. Until four years ago when I came down with bone cancer and then two years ago when I stopped being alive.

Kodachrome (Renee)

Category: Play Role: Renee From: Kodachrome

Renee says

Hi. This is weird. Hi. I wanted to . . . I don’t know what. I saw Charlie. I went to see Charlie, I mean. Wow. This is hard. Suzanne. I. Well, I guess I came for your blessing? I know we were never what you’d call the best of friends. Not that we -I don’t have any animosity. I understood. I wanted good things for you. Better than what happened. I mean that. I’m not bitter. I’m resigned. I have my tea. I have my books. I’m not complaining. I don’t want an exciting life. Excitement has never been -But that’s not what I came to say. It’s been a long time. When I let him go all those years ago. I guess what I’m saying is, I want him back. Which is to say get to know who he has become. But I can’t do that if I don’t feel like it’s okay with you. I’ve come to you to formally make peace so that he and I–What am I saying? He doesn’t want me. He has his own life. His own ways. It can’t work. Stuck as we are in our well-worn grooves. And he doesn’t need more love. The love you had was enough for life. Wasn’t it? I’m sorry to bother you. Please rest. Peacefully. Sorry.

Incendiary (Elise)

Category: Play Role: Elise From: Incendiary

Elise says

I want to stop. I really do. I’m trying. I really am. But I don’t think you understand. A fire is the most beautiful thing ever created. I dare you to show me a work of art that can rival a five alarm fire. You couldn’t do it. You just couldn’t. And I like art as much as the next person but I wonder always when I see a Van Gogh or a Rembrant–I imagine, as I’m sure you do, what it would look like on fire. That second before the painting caves in, that would be . . . it would be . . . incomparable. But sadly, I don’t think any of us will live to see it. We could burn prints, I suppose, cheap gift store prints, but it would just be paper. No melting paint, no disintegrating wood. It’s a waste.

There is nothing in this world like fire. At first it’s just a match, an idea, a spark, a little yellow flame, and it need nurturing to grow to an inferno. Those oranges, those yellows, those cores of blue don’t just happen themselves. They take planning. They take skill. They take love. I am not some Zippo-flicking fourteen year old -no. I am an artist. I can light a fire so precise all that’s left of the building is dust while the rest of the block is miraculously untouched. And of course, me and the boys are always around to come and put it out in case anything should happen.

Incendiary (Elise)

Category: Play Role: Elise From: Incendiary

Elise says

I could stay. I could stay. Oh, but the light and the heat and the smell, oh the smell. But I could stay. He has smells. He has heat. He has other fine attributes.

The light. The sound of a scraping match. Acetone. Gasoline. Kerosene. The dripping. The pain in the eyes. The light. The heat. The billows of smoke. We have too many buildings, don’t you think? Too many construction sites, empty warehouses, all so much fuel. It’s a service to take away these extra dangerous buildings. They are in the way, they are dry and cracked and falling down and they need a good match, a good flame a cleansing of the palate, a cleansing of the city.

But I could stay and climb into his arms and breathe his foul comfort of a breath. I could cling to his beliefs in right and wrong and the law. I could give up firestarting right now for good. I could climb back into his bed, dive under the covers. I could warm myself on his broad back, lick the back of his neck, put my small hand around his trigger finger.

But there’s the light. There’s the heat. There is love and there is love and there are things that I need. And I . . .

(ELISE folds JAKE’s, puts it with care on his bed, then kisses him on the forehead.)

Hearts Like Fists (Doctor X)

Category: Play Role: Doctor X From: Hearts Like Fists

Doctor X says

I have a face like a bowl of worms. Squirming around the ticks, the scars, the moles. It’s disgusting. A face like this. It’s absurd, without meaning or purpose. And I honestly can’t say if I’m an experiment gone awry or if I was just born this way. I have no origin. I have no memory. I can only remember you. The way you looked at me, the first time you saw me, it was like you saw the bowl underneath the worms. Your face was like a china plate. Perfect. Whole. Pristine. And you looked at me, the way you looked at me –

The patient had died. That much I remember. His wife was wailing but I couldn’t hear her. Because you were there and everything else melted away. “Let’s have a drink,” you said with your face like a plate. And we drank and we drank and we went to my place and we made love like normal people. And it continued that way for days, weeks, years. I can’t say for sure. Why can’t I remember? If I could only remember, maybe I could find you.

Or maybe I could figure out when how why you grew tired of me. Was it then I became what I am? Your body was like liquor and I couldn’t get enough, couldn’t spend a night without you, a minute, a second. I didn’t know you weren’t drunk on me. How could I have missed the diagnosis? How could I have avoided the bald shock, the morning discovery, to wake up and find your note?

And now I can’t remember anything except you. Your face everywhere I go. You will pay. Everyone will pay. You will all pay dearly.

Hearts Like Fists (Lisa)

Category: Play Role: Lisa From: Hearts Like Fists

Lisa says

What is this feeling, so unpleasant, like my insides rotting or my outside melting? There is a bad taste in my mouth that won’t go away. I feel itchy and oversized and everything is crawling. Is this what rejection is? Isn’t there usually a heaviness to it? An unbearable weight? (beat) Oh, there it is. A big boat of depression sailing over my chest.

It hurts. It hurts so much. It’s not -is it me? No one has ever rejected me before. He must be a lunatic. He must be some sort of nutcase. Someone not all there, because why else–? Ohhh. Or he can see everything wrong with me, all the things I’m afraid are there but can forget about. He knows I’m no good. I could have fought Doctor X harder. I could have climbed the fire escape faster maybe. Or I could have tried harder to love them back. If I had made myself maybe or –