Monologues for Women
Away
Michael Gow
Act 3 Scene 2
MEG:
I saw the carton. I saw it in the hall.
I saw it. It was near the telephone table, wasn’t it?
You saw it too, didn’t you? You saw the box sitting there.
You must have. It was sitting next to your vanity case.
Everything else that was in the hall got packed in the car. You did see it.
You were the last one out. You’re the one who shuts the door, after you’ve made
sure the stove’s off and the fridge has been left open. You saw the carton and you
left it there on purpose.
You left it behind.
And you knew what it was. You knew what was in it and you left it there.
Why did you do that?
Why would you do a thing like that?
I want to know why you did it.
Tell me why you deliberately left that box behind.
We have a game we play every year. We sneak presents home, we hide them,
we wrap them up in secret even though we can hear the sticky tape tearing and the
paper rustling; we hide them in the stuff we take away, we pretend not to see them
until Christmas morning even when we know they’re there and we know what’s in
them because we’ve already put in our orders so there’s no waste or surprise. And
Dad always hides his in a pathetic place that’s so obvious it’s a joke and we all laugh
at him behind his back but we play along! You knew what was in that box. You left it
behind. I want to know why.
What were you trying to do, what did you want to gain?
Did you want to have something we’d all have to be sorry for the whole holiday?
There’s always something we do wrong that takes you weeks to forgive.
You have to tell me.
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Monologues for Women
Europe
Michael Gow
Act 4
BARBARA:
Always ‘us’, ‘all of you’, ‘we’, ‘them’. Never ‘I’, ‘me’, just ‘you alone’. Do you ever
think of one individual person? Can you look at one human being and see only one
human being, or do you have to see millions of others standing behind in a crowd
that stretches to the horizon? Germans who are punctual, Frenchmen who all wear
berets, Italians all waving their arms in the air, Americans chewing gum? What do all
Australians do? How do you see them? I’ll tell you what they all do: they beat their
heads against a wall crying ‘We don’t need you. We’re as good as you. We are
happy with ourselves.’ That’s all anyone said while I was there. They would tell me
over and over and over how independent you all were, how grown up you all have
become, how confident, how open, mature, positive, repeating it all constantly like a
chant. But it can’t be true. No one who is happy needs to repeat, ‘I am happy’ a
thousand times a day to convince himself. All of you are deeply unhappy, as
unhappy as everybody else. You are all paranoiacs. You see, I can play that game,
I can put you at the front of a crowd and pretend you represent them all. I can go on
and on too. I can say that your newness, your freshness, your freedom from tradition
attracted my world-weary, neurotic decaying European sensibility. I can say you
represent all the things that are missing from my life: romance, laughter, space, clear
dazzling light. But I would be talking in clichés. It would have no meaning …
[in a sad, angry outburst] I missed you so badly! I missed your jokes. I missed
your body. I was happy for a week, but human happiness terrifies me. I wanted to
stay with you but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to come home, but I had to. I wish I’d never
met you. Being with you again makes me realise how unhappy I really am. I don’t
want to see you again. And I don’t want you to go, ever.
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Monologues for Women
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Jay Presson Allen
Act 2
BRODIE:
I will not resign and you will not dismiss me, Miss Mackay. I will not allow you to
exercise me on your warped compulsion to persecute! I will not be slandered,
hounded – you will not use the excuse of that pathetic – that humorous document to
bully and blackmail me into resigning. Mr Lowther – you are witness to this. Miss
Mackay has made totally unsupported accusations against my good name. And
yours. If she has one authentic shred of evidence, just one, let her bring it forth!
Otherwise, if any further word of this outrageous calumny reaches my ears, I shall
sue. I shall take Miss Mackay to the public courts, and I shall sue the trustees of
Marcia Blaine School if they support her. I will not stand by and allow myself to be
crucified by a woman whose fetid frustration has overcome her judgement! If
scandal is to your taste, Miss Mackay, then I shall give you a feast!
I am a teacher! I am a teacher! First! Last! Always! Do you imagine for one
instant that I will let that be taken from me without a fight?
I have dedicated, sacrificed my life to this profession. And I will not stand by like
an inky little slacker and watch you rob me of it. And for what reason? For jealousy.
Because I have the gift of claiming girls for my own. It is true that I am a strong
influence on my girls. Yes! I am proud of it! I influence them to be aware of all the
possibilities of life. Of Beauty, of Honor, of Courage. I do not, Miss Mackay,
influence them to look for ugliness and slime where they do not exist. [Takes a deep
breath.] My girls will be coming back from recreation so I shall return to my
classroom. They will find me composed and prepared to reveal to them the
succession of the Stuarts. [Strides toward the door, turns.] And on Sunday I shall
visit Mr Lowther at Cramond. We are accustomed, bachelor and spinster, to spend
Sundays together in sailing, in walking the beaches, and in the pursuit of music. Mr
Lowther is teaching me the mandolin. Good day, Miss Mackay.
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Monologues for Women
Bed Among the Lentils
Alan Bennett
SUSAN:
Mr Ramesh has evidently been expecting me because there’s a bed made up in the
storeroom upstairs. I go up first and get in. When I’m in bed I can put my hand out
and feel the lentils running through my fingers. When he comes up he’s put on his
proper clothes. Long white shirt, sash and what not. Loincloth underneath. All
spotless. Like Jesus. Only not. I watch him undress and think about them all at
Evensong and Geoffrey praying in that pausy way he does, giving you time to mean
each phrase. And the fan club lapping it up, thinking they love God when they just
love Geoffrey. Lighten our darkness we beseech thee O Lord and by thy great mercy
defend us from all perils and dangers of this night. Like Mr Ramesh who is twentysix with lovely legs, who goes swimming every morning at Merrion Street Baths and
plays hockey for Horsforth. I ask him if they offer their sex to God. He isn’t very
interested in the point but with them, so far as I can gather, sex is all part of God
anyway. I can see why too. It’s the first time I really understand what all the fuss is
about. There among the lentils on the second Sunday after Trinity.
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Monologues for Women
Death and the Maiden
Ariel Dorfman
Act 2
PAULINA:
I propose that we reach an agreement. You want this man freed and I want – would
you like to know what I want?
…
When I heard his voice last night, the first thought that rushed through my head,
what I’ve been thinking all these years, when you would catch me with a look that
you said was – abstract, fleeting, right? – you know what I was thinking of? Doing to
them, systematically, minute by minute, instrument by instrument, what they did to
me. Specifically to him, to the doctor … Because the others were so vulgar, so – but
he would play Schubert, he would talk about science, he even quoted Nietzsche to
me once.
I was horrified at myself. That I should have such hatred in me, that I should
want to do something like that to a defenceless human being, no matter how vile –
but it was the only way to fall asleep at night, the only way of going out with you to
cocktail parties in spite of the fact that I couldn’t help asking myself if one of those
present wasn’t – perhaps not the exact same man, but one of those present might be
… and so as not to go completely off my rocker and be able to deliver that Tavelli
smile you say I’m going to have to continue to deliver – well, I would imagine pushing
their head into a bucket of slime, or electricity, or when we would be making love and
I could feel the possibility of an orgasm building, the very idea of currents going
through my body would remind me and then – and then I had to simulate it, simulate
it so you wouldn’t know what I was thinking, so you wouldn’t feel that it was your
failure – oh Gerardo.
So when I heard his voice, I thought the only thing I want is to have him raped,
rave someone fuck him, so that he should know just once what it is to … And I can’t
– I thought that it was a sentence that you would have to carry out.
But then I told myself it could be difficult, after all you do need to have a certain
degree of enthusiasm to –
So I asked myself if we couldn’t use a broom handle. Year, Gerardo, you know, a
broom. And you know what conclusion I came to, [Brief pause.}
I want him to confess. I want him to set in front of that cassette-recorder and tell
me what he did – not just to me, everything, to everybody – and then have him write
it out in his own handwriting and sign it and I would keep a copy forever – with all the
information, the names and data, all the details. That’s what I want.
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Monologues for Women
The Last of The Red Hot Lovers
Neil Simon
ELAINE:
You hypocrite! You soul-searching, finger-smelling, hypocritical son of a bitch! Who
are you to tell anybody how to go through life? What would you have done if I came
in here all fluttery and blushing and ‘Ooh, Mr Cashman, don’t put your hand there, I’m
a married woman’? Were you going to tell me how much you respect me? You
know damn well tomorrow you’d be back behind that counter opening clams and
praying to Christ I’d never come back in your restaurant. And you know something?
That’s the way it should be. Forgive me for the terrible, sinful thing I’m about to say
but I happen to like the pure physical act of making love. It warms me, it stimulates
me and it makes me feel like a woman – but that’s another ugly story. That’s what I
came up here for and that’s what you were expecting. But don’t give me, ‘When I
was nine years old my mother ran off with the butcher and I’ve been looking for
someone to love me ever since.’ I don’t know your problems and I don’t care. Keep
your savory swordfish succotash stories to yourself. No one really cares about
anything or anyone in this world except himself, and there’s only one way to get
through with your sanity. If you can’t taste it, touch it or smell it, forget it! If you want
a copy of that speech, send fifty cents and self-addressed envelope –
It’s getting late … and I have to feed the lion at six.
…
Don’t waste your time. We’re incompatible. You need Joan Fontaine and I need
a box of lozenges.
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Monologues for Women
Blood of the Lamb
Bruce Mason
Act 1, Scene 2
HENRY:
We arrived at a little copse of English trees by a stream, ludicrously – God, how ludicrously! –
landscaped to look like The Hay Wain by John Constable, even to the tumble-down cottage
and a plaster horse between the shafts. We unpacked the lunch, opened the wine, ate,
drank, lay back on the grass. I was suddenly at peace, and Rodney, for once, was gentle.
He took me in his arms and nuzzled in my breasts, like a nosing lamb. I knew what he
wanted and thought, what the heck, let him have his way.
I closed my eyes, the way I had seen screen actresses do, and lay back to enjoy it, when
there was a piteous little squawk close by. I opened them to see a stray lamb with a broken
front leg, lurching and hobbling to the stream, bleating. I jumped up and took it in my arms; it
wasn’t a bad break and needed only a splint, when Rodney tore it away from me, pulled a
bowie knife from his back pocket and slit its throat.
There was a tiny scream and a little gagging noise, then it went flop, like a wool doll. For
a moment, I was simply stunned, while Rodney quite methodically tied it up by its hind legs to
a branch above our heads to drain its blood. And then, very slowly and menacingly, he took
off his shirt and pants and boots and stood under it, while the blood dripped over his face and
neck and back.
He looked at me, beautiful as a god, dappled in greenish light from the filtered sun, blood
dripping off the purpose veined and rampant prong jutting out of him, pulsing and throbbing
there. He had a ghastly splendour; he looked like a Maori tribal deity, all cock and gleaming
eyes like paua shell, the sort of idol the Kirklands would have chopped up for firewood a
century before. Then he said, very meanly, very quietly, ‘Okay, tight-twat: it’s Open Sesame
time!’
I retreated, held up beseeching hands, said ‘No, no, no’ but he tore off my clothes and
three me on the grass, spread my legs and plunged in and out, in and out, roaring like a
rutting bull …
I screamed, screamed with pain; I was still a virgin; blood streamed out of me right down
my legs and soaked the grass. Then, suddenly, his fury was spent. He helped me up,
washed me in the stream, quite tenderly, washed himself and we dressed, in total silence. I
could barely walk. He tied the lamb onto the horse’s pommel and we moved, very gently,
back to the house. It was agony to be straddled and, as soon as we returned, I asked for a
bath and lay in it for over an hour, then took to the cottage for the rest of the afternoon, fell
into instant sleep.
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Monologues for Women
Saint Joan
George Bernard Shaw
Scene 6
JOAN:
Give me that writing.
[She rushes to the table; snatches up the paper; and tears it into fragments.]
Light your fire: do you think I dread it as much as the life of a rat in a hole? My voices were
right! …
Yes: they told me you were fools and that I was not to listen to your fine words nor trust to
your charity. You promised me my life; but you lied. You think that life is nothing but not
being stone dead. It is not the bread and water I fear: I can live on bread: when have I asked
for more? It is no hardship to drink water if the water be clean. Bread has no sorrow for me,
and water no affliction. But to shut me from the light of the sky and the sight of the fields and
flowers; to chain my feet so that I can never again ride with the soldiers nor climb the hills; to
make me breathe foul damp darkness, and keep from me everything that brings me back to
the love of God when your wickedness and foolishness tempt me to hate Him: all this is worse
than the furnace in the Bible that was heated seven times. I could do without my warhorse; I
could drag about in a skirt; I could let the banners and the trumpets and the knights and
soldiers pass me and leave me behind as they leave the other women, if only I could still hear
the wind in the trees, the larks in the sunshine, the young lambs crying through the healthy
frost, and the blessed blessed church bells that send my angel voices floating to me on the
wind. But without these things I cannot live; and my your wanting to take them away from me,
or from any human creature, I know that your counsel is of the devil, and that mine is of God.
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Monologues for Women
As You Like It
William Shakespeare
Act 3, Scene 5
PHEBE:
Think not I love him, though I ask for him.
‘Tis but a peevish boy – yet he talks well –
But what care I for words? Yet words do well
When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.
It is a pretty youth – not very pretty –
But sure he’s proud, and yet his pride becomes him.
He’ll make a proper man. The best thing in him
Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue
Did make offence, his eye did heal it up.
He is not very tall, yet for his years he’t tall.
His leg is but so so; and yet ‘tis well.
There was a pretty redness in his lip,
A little riper and more lusty red
Than that mix’d in his cheek; ‘twas just the difference
Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask.
There be some women Silvius, had they mark’d him
In parcels as I did, would have gone near
To fall in love with him: but for my part
I love him not, nor hate him not; and yet
I have more cause to hate him than to love him.
For what had he to do to chide at me?
He said mine eyes were black, and my hair black,
And now I am remember’d, scorn’d at me.
I marvel why I answer’d not again.
But that’s all one. Omittance is no quittance.
I’ll write to him a very taunting letter,
And thou shalt bear it, wilt thou Silvius?
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Monologues for Women
The Merchant of Venice
William Shakespeare
Act 3, Scene 2
PORTIA:
You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,
Such as I am: though for myself alone
I would not be ambitious in my wish,
To wish myself much better; yet, for you
I would be trebled twenty times myself;
A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times
More rich;
That only to stand high in your account,
I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends,
Exceed account: but the full sum of me
Is sum of nothing; which, to term in gross,
Is an nelson’s girl, unschool’d, unpractis’d;
Happy in this, she is not yet so old
But she may learn; happier than this,
She is not bred so dull but she can learn;
Happiest of all is that her gentle spirit
Commits itself to yours to be directed,
As from her lord, her governor, her king.
Myself and what is mine to you and yours
Is now converted: but now I was the lord
Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,
Queen o’er myself; and even now, but now,
This house, these servants, and this same myself
Are yours, my lord. I give them with this ring;
Which when you part from, lose or give away,
Let it presage the ruin of your love,
And be my vantage to exclaim on you.
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Monologues for Women
Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare
Act 2, Scene 2
VIOLA:
I left no ring with her; what means this lady?
Fortune forbid my outside have not charm’d her!
She made good view of me; indeed, so much
That methought her eyes had lost her tongu,
For she did speak in starts distractedly.
She loves me, sure: the cunning of her passion
Invites me in this churlish messenger.
None of my lord’s ring! why, he sent her none.
I am the man. If it be so – as ‘tis –
Poor lady, she were better love a dream.
Disguise, I see, thou art a wickedness
Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.
How easy is it for the proper-false
In women’s waxen hearts to set their forms!
Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we!
For such as we are made of, such we be.
How will this fadge? My master loves her dearly,
And I, poor monster, fond as much on him;
And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me.
What will become of this? As I am man,
My state is despearate for my master’s love;
As I am woman – now alas the day! –
What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe!
O Time! thou must untangle this, not I;
It is too hard a knot for me to untie!
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