MONOLOGUES – Female, 2013
Jennifer from Tom Griffin's AMATEURS
Excited? I was ecstatic! I was already planning my wardrobe for the Emmys. And I read one more time. My third callback. But I didn't get it. I went outside. It was one of those hazy L.A. days, one of those days when everything felt so hot and... artificial. I could see the Hollywood sign shimmering up in the hills. So I got in my rented Plymouth and drove up to Lake Hollywood. Lake Hollywood, it's perfect! The damn thing is made of concrete! I walked around it. And all I could think about was, "Are there fish in this lake?" So I asked somebody. I actually went up to this guy, this worn-down, middle-aged guy, and asked, "Are there fish in this lake?" You know what he said, "This is Hollywood, lady. No fish except for the sharks. No bottom except for the slime. No princes except for the frogs." And we both laughed. I left about two weeks later. I didn't have the guts. It wasn't the talent. It was the guts.
Grace from Tina Howe's APPEARANCES
The one without the legs has these custom-made artificial legs that she hooks onto herself. They're amazing, they're so life like, the exact same color and texture as her own skin. The thing that really gets me about her, though, and I'm probably strange to notice it . . . is every day she's got a fresh pair of socks. That's right, each night she discards the pair she'd been wearing and selects a clean pair for the next day. If you stop and think about it, you realize there's no way those socks ever get dirty since she doesn't have feet that get them all sweated up. She's just a stickler for appearances and insists on fresh socks every day because fresh socks look better than wilted ones! Well, when I look down and see those spanking white socks hugging those little plastic ankles of hers, the cuffs folded just so . . . it brings tears to my eyes! That little girl really takes pride in how she looks! She knows she's been born with a handicap, but she doesn't let it get to her.
Pony from Tina Howe's APPROACHING ZANZIBAR
I get so scared thinking about it, I can't sleep. Every night I touch my bedside light forty-four times and hold my breath for as long as I can and pray, "Please God, don't let me die! I'll be good, I'll be good!" And then I start imagining what it will be like . . . You know, being dead in a coffin, being underground all alone in the dark, with the mice, and spiders, and worms crawling over me . . . and, and dead people moaning all around me . . . and trying to call Mommy and Daddy but they can't hear me because I'm so far underground. And, and then I start thinking about being there forever and ever and ever and ever until my body's a skeleton . . . a clattery skeleton with grinning teeth and no eyes, and I touch my night-light 144 times so it will go away and, then 244 times, and 444 times, and I get crying so hard Mommy has to come in and hold me. . . And, and . . . Oh no, it's starting to happen now. . . Could I get in bed with you?
Lynette from Richard Cameron's CAN'T STAND UP FOR FALLING DOWN
I tried to clean up after he'd pulled everything out of the kitchen cupboard and smashed it, but I cut my hand quite bad on a piece of glass from a sauce bottle, I think it was, and I had to leave it. I should have had stitches really. It's funny. I thought it was ketchup. "Serves you right," he says. "Cleaning up. You're always cleaning up. Leave it. Dammit -- LEAVE IT!" and something's exploded in my head and he must have hit my ear. My hand's full of blood but it's my ear that hurts. "Don't you swear in this house! You stop saying your foul language to me. I won't have it. Don't swear!" and I'm hanging on to the edge of the sink to stop from falling over. I'm going dizzy. It makes me ill to hear bad words said before God and he knows it and he says it all the more, over and over, and my hand's under the tap and my head's swimming and ringing loud and the water turns red. That night, I mend the door lock with one hand, while my other hand is throbbing through the cloth, and I hear him hammering and sawing in the shed in the yard, like it's been for days now into the night, but I don't care anymore about what he's doing. I don't care, and I don't care if God doesn't want me to say it, I wish he were dead. I wish he were dead.
Wanda from Casey Kurtti CATHOLIC SCHOOLGIRLS
My father comes home from work every night and before he even takes off his hat, he drops a bag of leaky, smelly meat on the table for my mother. She waits to see if she should kiss him or not. If it is just hamburger, she grunts. If it is liver, she practically goes to Mars. I hate liver. I hate all things sometimes, even things I like. My ballet lessons, my dolls, and I hate my smartness. You know why? Because they were given to me. I am working on something that's mine. I have been for along time. After school, I go home and do all my homework right away so I can go down to my father's store. He's not really a bad man. I just don't like him, or something. While he's in the back room, sawing those bones out of the big legs of meat, I take some soda cans and crush them onto my shoes. I move some sawdust into a little pile on the floor, and start to dance. Not like Nancy Sinatra or Diana Ross - oh, I am so much better. As I'm dancing, my mind just lets go and all these little movies come into my head. My favorite - I'm on the Ed Sullivan show. I'm singing a song. Fake snow is falling all around me. I have on a sexy dress. It's sort of a sad song and I look so incredibly beautiful that people in the audience are starting to cry. Well, I break into a tap dance, just to cheer them up. Later on, Ed Sullivan brings me backstage to the Beatle's dressing room, and Paul asks me to marry him. I say, maybe in a couple of months, because I have my career to think about. I become an international superstar and I go to live in a penthouse apartment right on top of Radio City Music Hall. So for now, I don't mind rehearsing in my father's store. He stays out of my way. So, you just get ready, because even if it is a sin, I don't care, I'm going to be famous.
Jane from Christopher Durang's 'DENTITY CRISIS
When I was eight years old, someone brought me to a theatre with lots of other children. We had come to see a production of Peter Pan. And I remember something seemed wrong with the whole production, odd things kept happening. Like when the children would fly, the ropes would keep breaking and the actors would come thumping to the ground and they'd have to be carried off by the stage hands. There seemed to be an unlimited supply of understudies to take the children's places, and then they'd fall to the ground. And then the crocodile that chases Captain Hook seemed to be a real crocodile, it wasn't an actor, and at one point it fell off the stage, crushing several children in the front row. Several understudies came and took their places in the audience. And from scene to scene Wendy seemed to get fatter and fatter until finally by the second act she was immobile and had to be moved with a cart. You remember how in the second act Tinkerbell drinks some poison that Peter's about to drink, in order to save him? And then Peter turns to the audience and he says that Tinkerbell's going to die because not enough people believe in fairies, but that if everybody in the audience claps real hard to show that they do believe in fairies, then maybe Tinkerbell won't die. And so then all the children started to clap. We clapped very hard and very long. My palms hurt and even started to bleed I clapped so hard. Then suddenly the actress playing Peter Pan turned to the audience and she said, "That wasn't enough. You didn't clap hard enough. Tinkerbell's dead.
Darlene from Jim Leonard, Jr.'s THE DIVINERS
Don't you guys read the Bible? I gotta learn the whole thing. Like, say I'm sittin at the table and I want seconds on dessert, Aunt Norma says, "Give me a verse first, Darlene." If I didn't know the Bible I'd starve to death, see? But I been learnin who Adam and Eve are. They're the first people, and they're livin in this great big old garden in Europe. And the thing about Eve is she's walking around pickin berries and junk with no clothes on. And this snake comes strollin up, see? And he tells her how she's sittin there jaybird stark naked. So this business a bein naked really sets God off at the snake, see? Cause Eve bein so dumb she didn't get in any trouble, but now it's like a whole nother ball game. And God wasn't just mad at this one snake either -- he was mad at all a the snakes and all a the worms in the world. So he tells em "From now on you guys're gonna crawl around in the dirt!" God says, "From now on nobody likes you."
Fiona from Heidi Decker's EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
I'm pretty. There's no getting around it. I just am. Pretty. Pretty is more than just a state of being, it's a way of life. My Mama always said, you're either pretty or you're not, and there's no in between. She doesn't believe in bisexuals either. She doesn't like indecisiveness in anyone. So I . . . am pretty. It's what I am. It's who I am. Now if you're waitin' for me to get to the part where I wish things had been different, that I hate the superficial world that we live in and beauty is only skin deep, you can forget it. Those are just things that ugly girls tell each other to make themselves feel better. Now you know it and I know it. There's no need to pretend for me. This face, and this body, have gotten me everything I've ever wanted. No, I didn't get things with sex. I am far too well bred to be that vulgar. Besides, I don't have to. "Pretty" is the promise of sex. Of good things, better things. I am the trophy that's always juuuust beyond their fingertips
. . . and people will do anything to get a glimpse, a taste, a touch. I'm the Holy Grail! Don't talk to me about being objectified. Yes, I am able to use four-syllable words. Bein' a woman never kept me from getting a thing. Now it's not that I don't empathize. I do. I've read plenty about the feminist movement . . . and I feel sorry for them, I do. But I dont' see what any of it has to do with me. I mean, c'mon, let's be honest here . . . we all know that those people are just women who were never quite pretty enough. Now that's not my fault. The truth is the truth, and if it hurts, I can't help it.
Catherine from Rachel Rubin Ladutke's GRACE NOTES
I don't remember much about giving birth, but I remember I heard her cry. I didn't get to look at her, or hold her. The nurse even said I didn't deserve to see her, because I was giving her away. They did let me feed her once. I had to refuse to sign the papers before they'd even let me do that. She had blue eyes. I think most babies have blue eyes, but hers weren't at all pale. They were really deep, deep blue. Like the ocean. One hour, that's all we had together. Then they took her away again. You know what I really don't get, Emmy? When I talked to the other girls at the agency, they all kept saying they couldn't wait to give birth so they could get back to normal. But I didn't want to have the baby, because then I was going to lose her. I tried to keep her with me as long as I could. I started having pains in the middle of the night, but I didn't wake Mom up until I couldn't stand it any more. I didn't want to go to the hospital, 'cause I knew I'd be coming home alone and empty. That's the worst part, I think. I feel so empty. I'm cold all the time. And now everyone expects me to just go on like nothing happened. They lied to me. Nobody told me it would be like this. I'm not even twenty years old, Emily, and I feel like my life is over. Or a part of my life, anyway. And I just keep waiting for it to stop hurting. But it doesn't. It just gets worse. You don't know how much it hurts. Emmy. Hold me?
Lucy from Alan Ayckbourn's INVISIBLE FRIENDS
This is my room. No one is allowed in here except for me. I'm a very tidy sort of person. Which is a bit extraordinary in this house. I think I must be a freak. I actually like to know where I have put my things. This is my bed. And this is my desk. And up there on the shelf are my special, most favorite books. Actually one of the reasons that I keep it tidy is because my very, very special friend, Zara, also like things tidy. Oh yeah, I should explain to you about Zara shouldn't I? You may have heard my mom talking about my invisible friend? Well, this is Zara. Zara, say hello to my friends. And won't you say hello to Zara, she did say hello to you. I invented Zara when I was seven or eight. Just for fun. I think I was ill at the time and wasn't allowed to play with any of my real friends, so I made up Zara. She's my special friend that no one else can see, except me. Of course, I can't really see her either. Not really. Although sometimes I--it's almost as if I could see her, sometimes. If I concentrate very hard it's like I can just glimpse her out of the corner of my eye. Still...Anyway...I've kept Zara for years and years, it's been almost ten years now actually. Until they all started saying I was much too old for that sort of thing and got worried and started talking about sending for a doctor. So then I didn't take her round with me quite so much after that. But she's still here. And when I feel really sad and depressed, I sit and talk to Zara. Zara always understands. Zara always listens.
Rebeka from Aaron Levy's ONE MAN'S DANCE
My father used to tell me this Dot The Astronaut story. It's about this girl, who was always the same age as me no matter how old I got. She was born paralyzed—can't walk, can't reach out, can't dance. At night she and her father would sit on their balcony and look up at the stars, just like we are. One night, Dot asked her dad where Pluto was, that of all the stars she wanted to go to Pluto. Her father asked why Pluto? "'Cause I could dance on Pluto," she said. "I could dance with Mickey Mouse, and Goofy, and Donald Duck, and me." Her father pointed to the sky and said, all you gotta do is push those stars out of your way, and you can get there. That's all you gotta do. And if you get there, if you actually get there, Ira, it's not dark anymore. It's bright. "Then I can't get there," Dot said, "'cause I can't move, I can't reach." And Dot's dad held her up to the sky and said, "You can reach, if you just look up, get real mad at them stars, and push them out of your way. See? Look, there's Pluto, Dot. Don't be afraid, LOOK AT IT." (Pause.) And she looked, and her father raised her higher, and … he let go … (Beat.) And that's where she is, Ira—on Pluto, dancing with her pals.
Kelsey from Lauren McConnell's THE NORTHERN LIGHTS
I want to go home. I want to catch a bus tomorrow and go home. To California! I can't go back to the cabin and the goat and the smell! Not after California! I can't take it anymore! I'm sorry! I've just begun to realize that, I don't know, I just want a normal life. I didn't think I did, but I do. Zephyr, everything about our life is strange! You've just lived up here so long you don't see it anymore. Even I didn't really see it until we went to visit my parents! We live in a house with no electricity! That is strange. The only time I get to hear music is in the car! Sometimes I sneak out to the car just to listen to the radio—even if it is nothing but this country western crap! And our bathtub is outside the house! That is strange. How many people have to put on snow boots every time they want to take a bath? How many people have to milk a stupid goat every time they need a little cream for their coffee? We live a strange life! But the strangest thing of all is we don't have to live this way! We have options! We could move and get real jobs and have a normal life. Our parents are even willing to help us! But instead we choose to live like the Beverly Hillbillies before they struck oil. Normal people don't live like that! Normal people don't want to live like that. I'm growing up fast. I remember how we used to sit around complaining about California—about the building, the growth, the polluted, modern rat-race. We knew a better way. We were better than all of them. We would live in harmony with nature. We were so self-righteous! I'll tell you this much: I enjoyed being in California. I liked the weather. I liked the malls! I liked the freeways! I liked it!