#6 Set Speeches and Soliloquies
Set speeches, long speeches delivered to another character, or soliloquies are difficult to manage. Here are some tips to help you avoid generalizing or summarizing.
- Find the language. John Barton says, “The words must be found or coined or fresh-minted at the moment you utter them.
- Play your action (intention). What do you want? Pursue it adamantly. The length of the speech indicates how great the desire is and how greatthe obstacle is.
- Divide and Conquer. Most set speeches divide into three parts. They pick up something in the immediate situation and respond to it. They then explore the situation which makes up the bulk of the speech, and they then resolve what’s been explored and either come to some conclusion or perhaps decide that there is no conclusion.
- Soliloquies should be shared with the audience. Just as you share your thoughts with another character when you’re playing a scene, so the same process of sharing must go on when alone.
- Often soliloquies explore and try to solve difficult situations.
- Conspire with the audience. It is a way of getting one-up on the other characters, of gaining the audience’s sympathy.
Here is a famous soliloquy from TwelfthNightin which Viola, who is disguised as a man, figures out why Olivia has sent a ring to her.
VIOLA:I left no ring with her; what means this lady?
Fortune forbid my outside have not charmed her!
She made good view of me, indeed so much
That—methought—her eyes had lost her tongue,
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, if 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 desperate 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 t’untie.