Fife - One on one: the best monologues for mature actors

Copyright 2015 by Stephen Fife

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, without written permission, except by a newspaper or magazine reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review.

Published in 2015 by Applause Theatre & Cinema Books
An Imprint of Hal Leonard Corporation
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Milwaukee, WI 53213

Trade Book Division Editorial Offices
33 Plymouth St., Montclair, NJ 07042

Play Sources, Permissions, and Acknowledgments can be found , which constitute an extension of this copyright page.

Printed in the United States of America

Book design by Kristina Rolander

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

One on one : the best monologues for mature actors / edited by Stephen Fife.
pages cm. (The Applause acting series)
ISBN 978-1-4803-6019-8
1. Monologues. 2. ActingAuditions. 3. Older peopleDrama. 4. American drama21st century. I. Fife, Stephen, editor.
PN2080.O558 2014
808.8245dc23
2014020450

www.applausebooks.com

Contents

PART ONE:
Monologues for Women

by Euripides, trans. by Philip Vellacott

by William Shakespeare

by Euripides, trans. by David Grene

by William Shakespeare

by John Webster

by Maria Irene Fornes

by A. R. Gurney

by John Guare

by Jane Anderson

by Molire, trans. by Richard Wilbur

by John Henry Redwood

by Samuel Hunter

by Velina Hasu Houston

by Tina Howe

by Anton Chekhov, trans. by Jean-Claude van Itallie

by Jeffrey Sweet

by Thomas Gibbons

by Casey Kurtti

by Edward Albee

by Lynn Nottage

by Joyce Carol Oates

by Maria Irene Fornes

by Eugene ONeill

by Wallace Shawn

by Caryl Churchill

by Nina Shengold

by Edward Albee

by Thornton Wilder

by Donald Margulies

by Eve Ensler

by John Patrick Shanley

by John Henry Redwood

by Sam Shepard

by Wallace Shawn

by Stephen Adly Guirgis

by Tennessee Williams

PART TWO:
Monologues for Men

by Euripides, trans. by David Grene

by John Guare

by William Shakespeare

by Laura Marks

by George Bernard Shaw

by Aeschylus, trans. by David Grene

by Athol Fugard

by William Shakespeare

by Donald Margulies

by Christopher Marlowe

by A. R. Gurney

by Stephen Fife

by Anton Chekhov, trans. by Jean-Claude van Itallie

by Christopher Durang

by Sarah Ruhl

by Joyce Carol Oates

by Arthur Kopit

by John Patrick Shanley

by August Wilson

by Philip Kan Gotanda

by Herb Gardner

by Shem Bitterman

by Craig Lucas

by Tennessee Williams

by William Shakespeare

by Matthew Lopez

by Anton Chekhov, trans. by Jean-Claude van Itallie

by David Mamet

by William Shakespeare

by Arthur Miller

by Lisa DAmour

by Sam Shepard

by August Wilson

by Lynne Alvarez

by Stephen Fife

by Carson Kreitzer

by Molire, trans. by Richard Wilbur

by Christopher Durang

by Eugene ONeill

by Phillip Hayes Dean

by Arthur Kopit

by August Wilson

by Jerry Sterner

by Tom Stoppard

by Arthur Miller

When Applause first asked me to edit both a monologue and a scene book for mature actors, I had some hesitation.

I figured that mature was a code word for old, which meant that the starting age for characters would likely be around fifty-five or sixty. A few characters from well-known plays came to mind right away: George and Martha from Edward Albees Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , King Lear from Shakespeares eponymous play, and Mrs. Warren from George Bernard Shaws Mrs. Warrens Profession , not to mention Winnie from Happy Days and Krapp from Krapps Last Tape , both by Samuel Beckett. But would there be enough interesting characters from published plays (a criteria) to fill one book, much less two?

But then Applause informed me that the minimum age for mature characters was in fact going to be forty years old. This opened up a huge swath of other plays that could now be considered. In the end, I decided against using material from any of the characters who had first come to my mind, feeling that these monologues were already sufficiently anthologized. I was hoping to find pieces that were less familiar, characters who could live beside George and Martha and Winnie and King Lear as avatars of aging, while also including others who reflected the youthful pursuits of the matureour immaturity, if you will.

The fact is, age itselfthat is, the concept of aginghas changed drastically in recent times. People live longer than ever, through a combination of modern medicine and healthier lifestyles. Not only that but there is an expectation of maintaining a high quality of life for a longer time than evercertainly through ones seventies, even eighties. At the same time, the focus on youth culture (at least here in the USA) has never been more intense, with figures like Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus and One Direction (soon to be replaced by new paragons of young-ness) dominating the headlines. Men over forty still do their best to forestall age by pursuing fleeting images of their youth, while women over forty are still too often ignored or taken for granted. The salient fact, though, is that being over forty now can mean many differentoften contradictorythings, and the age-old stereotypes of old age dont really apply anymore.

So when I went looking for monologues from published plays for this book, I did my best to find pieces that reflected a variety of personal experience, along with a sense of all the social upheavals that have influenced the lives of those who are forty and oldera group so often misleadingly depicted as set in our ways. In addition, having spent a few years early on as a working actorand having participated in many auditions as a playwright, director, producer, literary manager, friend, or consultantI sought out monologues that I hoped would give performers (and would-be performers) active material to work from that could show off their strengths. That is, an audition is a one-to-three minute opportunity to impress a few strangers with how special you are, how you are the one and only person who is right for the role in question. In order to do this, actors need a monologue with a strong actionlike Big Daddys explosive rage or Eve Enslers lament for a successful womans obsession with body imageto provide a way to showcase the distinctive expressivity each performer is capable of. It seems to me that such qualities could also make these monologues useful for acting classes. I certainly hope so.

Frequently auditions require actors to bring in monologues from classical plays, so I have included a sprinkling of such pieces to choose from. I want to emphasize that there is an abundance of great monologues from the plays of Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides, Plautus, Aristophanes, Shakespeare and his contemporaries, John Webster and his contemporaries, Molire, Goldoni, Goethe, Schiller, Corneille, and so many others. I encourage actors to immerse yourselves in such treasures to find (and even self-adapt) the material that works best for you. The same goes for the other monologues in the bookalways read the entire plays. You never know what new ideas for character actions this might provide.

Finally, one more note on the subject of age90 percent of the plays I researched for monologues did not specify the ages of characters over thirty. Certainly Shakespeare and Molire rarely do. Even contemporary mainstays like Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller will often refer to a character merely as middle-aged or no longer young. In other cases, characters are referred to as late thirties in plays from a decade or two ago. In some of these plays, I felt that these designations were arbitrary and could equally be applied to someone in his or her forties. In other cases, I felt that a man or woman of forty-plus could just as easily be considered in casting the role. (I dont believe, however, that this is universally true; your friends may tell you that can still pass for twenty-eight, but that doesnt mean that its a good idea to show up for auditions for characters who are announced as twenty-five to thirty. In fact, that can be a sure way to get a negative mark placed next to your name by an impatient casting director.)