MONOLOGUES - NOVEMBER 2020

FEMALE

MANY MOONS by Alice Birch

JUNIPER I am Looking for Love. I am actively, looking for love. You know those traffic light
parties where you wear red if you’re not available, amber if you might be and green if you
absolutely are? Well I’m on green. Constantly. I like a lot of things – I love a lot of things. I
get excited pretty easily about food and friends and parties and events and the weather and
sex and films and just hanging out. I like Facebook a lot – I have it as an app on my iPhone
which I sort of hate, because I like to think of myself as quite an arty kind of person – a bit of
a free spirit, even, which is so cheesy but if you knew me you wouldn’t think it was so bleugh
you know? I’m a bit cartwheel, a bit sort of out there, you know? I sometimes just get on a
train to wherever without buying a ticket and just chat away to whoever I’m sat next to. I
have been told I smile a lot. I was once told my smile was my best feature – my bottom is my
worst, I know – and I do like to smile. I read somewhere – Glamour, I think – that smiling is
statistically proven to be more attractive that makeup is ….. which now I say it out loud
sounds ridiculous – I’m not sure how you’re supposed to come up with statistics for that,
but… I’d never do online dating – you do hear horror stories – and it’s so horribly
unromantic, but I didn’t once put an ad on um Darwen Dating dot com. Just to see. You have
to come up with a name and a little tagline – I had ‘Insert something witty here’ and got a
whole load of cock jokes, so had to start again. Small Northern Smiler seeks Man with
Hands that might be good at holding my hand. For Walks, Kisses and Cook-offs. Must be tall
enough to rest your chin upon my head. Tolerance of kind-of feminists into Eighties pop,
potatoes and legwarmers essential. Good voice for reading stories out loud is a bonus. Still
seeking.

I Never by Alisha Gaddis   

Tamsin
I think we are lost. Like really lost. I have no cell phone service. Where in America  is there
no cell phone service?!? Where, I ask? Nowhere. Only a place that you get  really lost in.
And we are lost.    How much gas is in the car? Do we have enough to get somewhere?
Somewhere  that isn’t here?    This is the end. We may just die here on this deserted road.   
Oh Lord. There are so many things I haven’t done! I never took trapeze lessons. I  never
made my grandmother’s noodles. I never climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. I  never climbed any
mountains for that matter. I don’t even have hiking boots. I hate  hiking. I never got over my
hatred of hiking!    I wanted to start a pyramid scheme. Not one that hurt people and drained
their life  savings, but one that got me rich—filthy-dirty rich so that I could move to Turks  and
Caicos and never speak to anyone at my office again! I would just leave my  cubicle one day
and leave all my pictures up—and my “Happy Hump Day” mug—  all just perfectly on my
desk. I would just leave it all. They would all wonder where I  had gone. They would first be
concerned, then scared, then terrified. They would  hold a meeting and alert the authorities
and O’Connel would say that he wished he  had given me that promotion and Marcy would
admit she HAD ate my piece of chocolate birthday cake out of the fridge. She knew I knew it
all along. They would all  cry. They would cry so much! And the whole time I would be
sipping some daiquiri  with a special name with two tiny paper umbrellas AND a curly straw.
And I would  be rich—dirty stinking rich. SO rich. And I won’t give anyone at the office any of 
the money. Yes, they are DEFINTIELY left out of my pyramid scheme. 

JANE (chugs her wine. She knows what’s coming) Your maid of honour? Really? Wow,
that’s so very nice of you! Generous and kind and all sorts of..(searching for the right
words) ..adjectives. But here’s the thing Kate. The thing is…I…well…I can’t be your maid of
honour. Because. Well…Kate…I could die soon. No, it’s not cancer. Not yet! I mean, here’s
the thing, who knows how each of us will die, right? I could die of cancer. And, I would feel
really bad if I was your maid of honour and I kicked the bucket just before your wedding, you
know? (Jane digs deeper) I could also be killed! Oh my god, Kate. I could fall off the side of a
mountain I could be mauled by a mountain lion and in the tussle I could totally fall off the
side of a mountain. And then think how much that would suck if your maid of honour fell off a
cliff and you had no one to count on when you got married! That would suck big time.( Jane
knows this isn’t working) Okay, fine! Kate I don’t want to be your maid of honour. I’m sorry
but it’s too much!

SWEET CHARITY Neil Simon/ Cy Coleman/Dorothy Fields

Charity, a hopeless romantic is in the hotel suite of Italian movie star, Vittorio Vidal
CHARITY
I don’t. Not really. But so many things seem to happen to me and I don’t know how or why.
People always ask me, “Why did you take up with that guy?” or “How did you wind up in that
joint?”. I got so embarrassed always saying “I don’t know”. But it was the truth. I don’t. (spits
out olive stone) Scousi. But I guess you’re supposed to know why you do things or how you
wind up in places… SHE SHRUGS …anyway, now when anyone asks me “why? Or “how?”
I just say - “Fickle finger of fate”… and I don’t get embarrassed anymore. Fickle finger of
fate. Fickle finger of fate. Feels good. It cools the mouth. (TO VIDAL) You wanna try it? I
got lots of phrases I like to say even when they don’t exactly fit. Like if some wise-ass at the
Fandango says to me something fresh or something dirty and I just can’t think quick enough
to answer, I like to say “Up yours”. That’s a good one Fits almost any question. Of course I
wouldn’t say it to a nice refined gentleman like you. I mean it wouldn’t be right. You say to
me “Why did you ever take a job like a dance hall hostess?” And then I say “Up yours … it
just isn’t nice….but I can say “Fickle finger of fate” , can’t I?

Toast  Danielle Ozymandias 

So I’m at the airport and of course I have to go through a security checkpoint, so I walk
boldly through and it goes off, and it’s my barrettes* I mean,  a quarter-sized square of metal
has set the damn thing off. So I stand while they  run the wand over me and discover that
indeed, I am not a crazed lunatic but a  well-accessorized individual. And I’m feeling pretty
good because they have not  discovered my two ounces of liquid acetate. And I stand there
and wait for my bag. 
And I’m waiting and waiting, and it’s not coming out of the x-ray machine and the  line is
backing up behind me and people are flashing me angry postal worker looks  and then the
conveyor belt starts moving. So I go to grab my bag—but the belt is  moving backwards.
There are two security guards at the machine, and the younger  one takes the bag, flips it
over and sends it back in. And I’m thinking, well, I packed  pretty tight—they probably can’t
see everything. And I wait . . . and I wait . . . and  these two guards are looking at the screen,
both of them women, and finally the  younger one taps the older one on the shoulder and
says, “It’s okay, let it go.” And  I realize that they have just found my hastily packed nine-
inch, hand-held, battery-  operated, chrome dildo and mistaken it for a bomb. Of course, it
could have been  worse—instead of just staring at me like I was a sex-crazed lunatic and
talking  about me in the breakroom, they could have whisked the dildo away to the bomb 
squad while they interrogated me in a very small, badly lit room where even my  accessories
would not have made me look good and they would have found the  nail polish remover.

* barrettes – hairslides

Macbeth
Act I Scene 7
Lady Macbeth:
Was the hope drunk,
Wherein you dress’d yourself? Hath it slept since?
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
At what it did so freely? From this time
Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valour,
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would,’
Like the poor cat i’ th’ adage?
What beast was’t then,
That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time, nor place
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both:
They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know
How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.

MALE

Burying Your Brother in the Pavement    Jack Thorne

TOM: I first had the idea that I was the son of God, when I was nine.    I’d just read the
Bible.    Not the whole Bible, not cover-to-cover but – you know… extensive dipping…
Anyway, the more I read, the more it sort of made sense, that I was the second coming. 
Jesus Christ.  Two.    The sequel.    I mean, my mum a virgin? Well, looking at her you could
certainly believe so. Check. Dad not my real dad? We never did have much in common.
Check. Me  leading a sad-and-tortured-life-where-everyone-hates-me-and-I-have-to-  die-for-
the-good of -humanity--who’ll be-sorry-when-I’m-gone?  Check. But then I tried to cure a
leper – well, a kid with really bad eczema… it didn’t work.  He just bled a lot. I tried to – rip
some of his skin off and…    Beat.    I first got the idea I might have AIDS after a particularly
aggressive sex-ed class –  you know, the sort of class where your teacher just repeatedly
shouts; ‘You must NEVER have sex. Never. Ever. Ever.’    I mean, talk about premature, I
hadn’t even persuaded a girl to kiss me yet. But he  always was premature, Mr Wilkins. So,
AIDS – me? Unlikely! But then I had a  tetanus shot and it took them ages to find a vein and
I thought – well, maybe I had  a mutated version of AIDS

Chatroom Edna Walsh

JIM    “I’m a Roman Catholic… and it’s last Easter… and ahhh… and every year our parish 
does a big Passion play in our local church. My mother’s very active in the church.  She’s the
Virgin Mary…in the Passion play she’s the Virgin Mary. And my  whole family get involved.
I’ve got three older brothers and they’re Roman soldiers.  They’re very broad… not like
me… and they look the part. One year my brother  Derek went too heavy on Jesus and
actually popped his knee right open. It was a  mess. But anyway, this year and my mother
runs into my bedroom with her ‘terrific  news’. She’s building it up like she’s going to tell me
that I’m going to get a stab at  playing a centurion… until she tells me… they want me to play
John, who’s a bit gay, I’ve got nothing against gay people. Historically speaking, he
probably wasn’t gay. But in our parish it’s always the slightly effeminate boys who  get to
play John .Like I say… I’ve got nothing against gays. I respect the gay  community. They’re
tough, they know their own mind, they stand out and they  don’t care, you know. I respect
them. But I’m not like that at all. I’m just a sap with  no bottle who knows nothing. I’m not
interesting enough to play the gay icon that  is St John. In a million years I could never get
away with those lime robes.

Forever House    Glenn Waldron  Richard is sixteen/seventeen, gay, but he is not out
yet.
Richard Plymouth? I think – I think it’s shit. Excuse my language but – I really think it  is.
It’s completely shit. I think it’s crap. There’s nothing, like – nothing ever happens here –
nothing interesting or amazing or – or even anything horrible. And  most of the people are –
like, when they walk, they can barely lift their feet off the  ground. I mean, they all walk round
like they’re kind-of monged-out most of the  time. Haven’t you seen that? Well, they do. And
it’s so – I mean – this town, it’s  so small. It’s, like, miniscule – it doesn’t even have a Pizza
Express. Because –  because I mean, how can you live all your life somewhere that doesn’t
have a Pizza  Express? Everyone who lives here, they think it’s the centre of the universe.
But it’s so… Because if they bombed it tomorrow, if they put a great big nuclear bomb under,
like,  Debenhams and it flattened the whole thing then the rest of the world would be  very
sad and they’d miss it for a few days and everything but would it – I mean, the  world would
go on, wouldn’t it? It wouldn’t be like the world couldn’t function any  more without the people
living in this town. There would be no possibility of the  world stopping or – or anything really
changing. And after a while, all the people in  this town and all the things they’d done, they’d
just be, like, memories in other  people’s heads. And then, the people that had the memories
would die and then  they’d just be some people in photographs who nobody knows. Does
that make  sense? I want to go to London. I’m going to go to London. I want to study  there.
Art.”

Mercy  Laura Cahill 

 STU  I’ve already written one novel. Yeah. I submitted it to Random House. Well, I knew
this guy who I went all the way through school with in Pennsylvania. He was a real dork
actually, I mean you never would in a million years expect this guy to have even made
anything of himself, you know, he just didn’t “have” it. I don’t know how the hell he became
so important, but he’s an editor anyway at Random House. So I called him up and he was
like “Oh great,” and we had lunch and he invited me and a bunch of other guys from our
group in high school to a big party once and I saw Jay McInerney there. So, um, anyway, I
told him I’m writing this novel and he said, “Oh, sure, just send it to me,” and so I did and
yesterday I got this letter back. And it was from an assistant. That asshole didn’t even give
me enough respect to take my manuscript and put it on top of his own desk and read it and
let me know what he thought. I don’t even know who this Bozo is who read it or how qualified
they even were to give me their opinion. Well, whatever, it doesn’t really matter. I’m trying
short stories now. I’m interested in the form. It challenges me. So I’m working on pursuing it
full time. Yeah. I’ll always be a doctor

Jailbait  Deirdre O’Connor  

MARK  My brother got engaged this summer. I’m supposed to be his best man, if you can
imagine that. And I’ll admit, when he called me up my first reaction was, “ah fuck,” right?
There he goes. There goes my brother to a life of fucking Netflix every night and matching
Banana Republic outfits. So I’m not even hearing what he’s saying. Talking about picking out
the ring. Talking about the fucking five Cs of diamonds as if I give a fuck. And I am
depressed, you know. My little brother. This hits me hard. And I’m actually sitting there
wallowing, not even realizing that he’s happy. I mean off-his-balls happy. That this is exactly
what he wants. So I fucked his fiancée. Joke. Just a joke. His fiancée’s fucking ugly. I’m
writing a toast to this marriage. This marriage I dread. This death of my brother as I’ve
known him and I’m toasting to it. I’m an asshole. I know it at least. I’m not the enemy. I’m not
twisting my mous- tache trying to keep you single. But you’ve been low and I don’t know how
to help you. If you want to call her, call her. If you are stupid for Valerie in a way that I was
too dense to see, I will write the fucking toast. Just tell me what you want.

Othello Act II Scene I

Iago
That Cassio loves her, I do well believe it;
That she loves him, 'tis apt and of great credit:
The Moor, howbeit that I endure him not,
Is of a constant, loving, noble nature,
And I dare think he'll prove to Desdemona
A most dear husband. Now, I do love her too;
Not out of absolute lust, though peradventure
I stand accountant for as great a sin,
But partly led to diet my revenge,
For that I do suspect the lusty Moor
Hath leap'd into my seat; the thought whereof
Doth, like a poisonous mineral, gnaw my inwards;
And nothing can or shall content my soul
Till I am even'd with him, wife for wife,
Or failing so, yet that I put the Moor
At least into a jealousy so strong
That judgment cannot cure. Which thing to do,
If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trash
For his quick hunting, stand the putting on,
I'll have our Michael Cassio on the hip,
Abuse him to the Moor in the rank garb—
For I fear Cassio with my night-cap too—
Make the Moor thank me, love me and reward me.
For making him egregiously an ass
And practising upon his peace and quiet
Even to madness. 'Tis here, but yet confused:
Knavery's plain face is never seen tin used.