2 Best Jane Campion Monologues – Opening Monologue

The Piano (Ada McGrath)

Category: Movie Role: Ada McGrath From: The Piano

The voice you hear is not my speaking voice, but my mind’s voice. I have not spoken since I was six years old. No one knows why, not even me. My father says it is a dark talent, and the day I take it into my head to stop breathing will be my last. Today he married me to a man I have not yet met. Soon my daughter and I shall join him in his own country. My husband writes that my muteness does not bother him and hark this. He says, “God loves dumb creatures, so why not I?” ‘Twere good he had God’s patience, for silence affects us all in the end. The strange thing is, I don’t think myself silent. That is because of my piano. I shall miss it on the journey.

The Piano (Flora McGrath)

Category: Movie Role: Flora McGrath From: The Piano

One day when my mother and father were singing together in the forest, a great storm blew up out of nowhere. But so passionate was their singing that they did not notice, nor did they stop as the rain began to fall, and when their voices rose for the final bars of the duet a great bolt of lightning came out of the sky and struck my father so that he lit up like a torch. And at the same moment my father was struck dead my mother was struck dumb! She never spoke another word.