MONOLOGUES

Monologues for Adults

download monologues

GONE GIRL (female)

a woman talks about walking away from her husband. 

Start- 

"Cool girl. Men always use that, don’t they? As their defining compliment. She’s a cool girl. Cool girl is hot. Cool girl is game. Cool girl is fun. Cool girl never gets angry at her man. She only smiles in a chagrin loving manner and then presents her mouth for f***ing. She likes what he likes. So, evidently, he’s a vinyl hipster who loves fetish monger. If he likes girls gone wild, she’s a mall babe who talks football and endures buffalo wings at Hooters.

"When I met Nick Dunne, I knew he wanted a cool girl and for him, I’ll admit, I was willing to try. I wax stripped my pussy raw. I drank canned beer watching Adam Sandler movies. I ate cold pizza and remained a size 2. I blew him… semi regularly. I lived in the moment. I was fucking game. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy some of it… Nick teased out in my things I didn’t know existed. A lightness, a humour, an ease. But I made him smarter, sharper, I inspired him to rise to my level. I forged the man of my dreams. We were happy pretending to be other people. We were the happiest people we knew. And what’s the point of being together if you’re not the happiest. But Nick got lazy. He became someone I did not agree to marry. He actually expected me to love him unconditionally then he dragged me, penniless, to the naval of this great country and found himself a newer, younger, bouncier cool girl.

You think I’d let him destroy me and end up happier than ever? No fucking way. He doesn’t get to win. My cute, charming, salt of the earth misery guy. He needed to learn. Grown ups work for things. Grown ups pay. Grown ups suffer consequences."

FENCES (female)

A women tells her husband how she has championed him at the sake of herself. 

Start- 

I been standing with you! I been right here with you, Troy. I got a life too. I gave several years of my life to stand in the same spot with you. Don’t you think I ever wanted other things? Don’t you think I had dreams and hopes? What about my life? What about me. Don’t you think it ever crossed my mind to want to know other men? That I wanted to lay up somewhere and forget about my responsibilities? That I wanted someone to make me laugh so I could feel good?

You not the only one who’s got wants and needs. But I held on to you, Troy. I took all my feelings, my wants and needs, my dreams…and I buried them inside you. I planted a seed and waited and prayed over it. I planted myself inside you and waited to bloom. And it didn’t take me no eighteen years to find out the soil was hard and rocky and it wasn’t never gonna bloom.

But I held on to you, Troy, I held you tighter. You was my husband. I owed you everything I had. Every part of me I could find to give you. And upstairs in that room…with the darkness falling in on me…I gave everything I had to try and erase the doubt that you wasn’t the finest man in the world, and wherever you was going…I wanted to be there with you. Cause you was my husband. Cause that’s the only way I was gonna survive as your wife. You always talking about what you give…and what you don’t have to give. But you take too. You take…and don’t even know nobody’s giving.

A MARRIAGE STORY  (female)

A divorce attorney tells her client how women are perceived regarding their children. 

Start- 

Don’t ever say that. People don’t accept a mother who drinks too much wine and yells at her child and calls him an asshole. I get it. I do it too. We can accept an imperfect Dad. Let’s face it, the idea of a good father was only invented like 30 years ago. Before that fathers were expected to be silent and absent and unreliable and selfish and we can all say that we want them to be different but on some basic level we accept them, we love them for their fallibilities. But people absolutely don't accept those same failings in mothers.

We don't accept it structurally and we don't accept it spiritually because the basis of our Judeo-Christian Whatever is Mary Mother of Jesus and she’s perfect. She’s a virgin who gives birth, unwaveringly supports her child, and holds his dead body when he’s gone. But the Dad isn’t there. He didn’t even do the f***ing because God’s in heaven. God is the father and God didn't show up so you have to be perfect and Charlie can be a f*** up and it doesn't matter. You’ll always be held to a different, higher standard and it’s f***ed up, but that’s the way it is. 

Hazel in The Children by Lucy Kirkwood (female)

Hazel is a retired mother of four; she practices yoga, she’s super-organized, and is the epitome of domestic efficiency. She lives on a farm with her husband, and has led an environmentally responsible life that she feels now warrants being a little selfish. Her monologue is a meditation on getting older.  
Start-

I’m growing a beard you know. This morning – I found two hairs on my chin and I looked at them, for a good minute, and I tried to convince myself this was alright , it’s natural, it’s chemical, it’s your age, you know? Because you know I don’t hold with people our age trying to look twenty-two, because you see these women don’t you, in the paper, looking like stretched eggs, trying to hide it when all it’s doing is shouting it out loud isn’t it, ‘I’m old and I’m frightened of it!’ I mean and because I’m not frightened of it so so so so but then I thought no. No because this is how it starts isn’t it, the slow descent into the coffin it starts with two black hairs on your chin that you let run wild one day and you don’t even know it but right there, in that moment, you’ve lost, you’ve lowered your defenses and the enemy’s got in hasn’t it yes so I went at these hairs I went at them ruthlessly with a pair of tweezers and I can’t describe to you the sense of triumph.

Augusta in The Turquoise Elephant by Stephen Carleton (Female)

Set in the not so distant future. Augusta Macquarie lives behind triple glazed glass to protect herself from the seemingly undeniable effects of climate change. This matriarchal powerhouse and conservative politician delivers a speech to her supporters. This is political rhetoric from a powerful character, so sure of herself and her cause. 

Augusta: 

Everything’s dying, apparently. The weather – the planet as we know it. Apparently even Capitalism itself is dying! [Laughter.] Please! You wish! [Applause.] Oh, yes – it’s the end of days! But who exactly is complaining? The Chinese are investing in cloud seeding. Saudi Arabia is making a fortune out of drought-resistant crop technology. They’re growing food in dustbowls, and they’re making trillions in the process! If this is the apocalypse, I say bring it on! The smart people are thriving. The smart people see business opportunity in what’s happening to our planet. We have gathered here to solve the world’s problems, and we all know the solution is Fossil Fuels! Petroleum and coal are the energy sources our planet needs to see it through this time of flux! The timing is urgent.
There are actually those – the enemy within – who would have us live in permanent terror and apprehension about common sense solutions we are proposing. Well, we’re not afraid of you! To this home-grown enemy, to the faceless and so-called ‘cultural’ terrorists, this “Front”, these Turquoise militants, I say…up yours!!

Unassigned character in Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again by Alice Birch (female)

In this uber-contemporary, feminist play by Alice Birch the characters are mostly unassigned and so quite a bit of text could be played by a woman of any age. This piece is In response to an onslaught of abuse about her body, this character takes us through the logic behind how she is going to beat the societal pressures on women’s bodies; she is simply going to choose them, as a form of empowerment. No matter what the world throws at her, as long as she chooses it, it’s no longer an attack, right? 

Monologue:
I have felt very
tired lately.
I could fall asleep standing straight up.
I’m sorry about the watermelon.
I’m not sorry about the watermelon.
.
Where my body stops and the air around it starts has felt a little like this long continuous line of a battleground for about my whole life, I think.
Fortify.
.
I have cut my eyelashes off. I have covered myself in coal and mud. I have bandaged my body up and made myself a collection of straight edges. Fortify. I have rubbed iodine, bleach and the gut of a rabbit into my skin until it began to burn. I have nearly emptied my body of its organs. I stopped eating for one year and three days, my body a bouquet of shell bone. I have eaten only animal fat until I rolled, bubbled and whaled and came quite close to popping. Fortify. Make my edges clear. Where I begin and air stops is my motherland. No? I have sat under sun lamps until my skin crackled, spat and blistered. I have pulled my hair out with my fingers and my teeth out with pliers. I have wrapped myself in clingfilm, foil, clothes, make-up and barbed wire.
No fortification strong enough.
Nothing to stop them wanting to come in.
Lie down.
Lie down and become available. Constantly. Want to be entered. Constantly. It cannot be an Invasion, if you want it. They Cannot Invade if you Want It. Open your legs and throw your dress over your head, pull your knickers down and want it and they can invade you no longer.
Get wet.
Get wet.
Get wetter.
Turn on. Turn on. Turn on.
And want it. And want it. Constantly. Constantly. Constantly want it. Remove the edges of your body. Choose. My body is no battleground, there is no longer a line of defense – I Am Open. There are borders here no more. This body this land is unattackable, unprotected, unconquerable, unclaimable, no different from air around it or bodies coming in because there Is no in to come into, you cannot overpower it because I have given it you cannot rape it because I choose it you cannot take because I give it and because I choose it I choose it I choose it
Constantly.
This World Can Never Attack Me Again.
Because I Choose it. Over and Again and Again and
Over.

Fleishman’s in Trouble- (female)

A women longs for her younger years, of freedom. She loves her husband and kids but she isn’t adjusting to the mundane life in New Jersey 

Start- 

He was nothing special. None of the guys I worked with were. They used war language to describe writing. I'll tell you, if the American man ever saw who was in charge of defining masculinity for him, he would seriously reconsider his subscription. But this moment in my life was not about Glen. It was about me. I didn't so much love him as wanna be part of him, to eat him, to become him. You have to understand, I was never wild. I didn't have affairs. I didn't have good judgment because I didn't have any experience. But I wanted what he had. I wanted to really participate in life. I wanted to eat the world the way he and every other guy at the magazine did. I went about it the wrong way. I used to blow smoke on him so his wife would know where he'd been. I didn't realize the real power I had was that I had no obligations I could do whatever the hell I wanted. How was I supposed to know that one day in seeking the safety of a grownup life, I would lose that power. I am 41 now. I can't believe how briefly I held that power. I can't believe how briefly I held it and how quickly I gave it away. I've been smoking pot a lot recently. I hadn't done that in years. I thought about that thing Seth said about how people have affairs, not because they're betraying their spouses, but because they're trying to remember who they were in the first place. I thought about that a lot lately. 

Okay. Alright. That's probably why Glenn was doing what he had been doing. It was certainly why I was doing what I was doing now only there's no affair though. Clandestine meetings and stairwells. There's just a cigarettes in the city where I lived when I was young. How poorly I wear this life. How the adjustment to it's taking so long that I've started to feel like it isn't coming soon. It isn't coming ever. Was never coming. This is what I was saying about questions that can't be answered. Is life fair? How did I get here? Trust me, you shouldn't ask them.

Fleishman’s In Trouble.  (Female) 

A women questions who she is and how she got to this point in her life- kids a husband and lives in NJ.  

Start- 

Did you remember when Facebook first came out and you like, looked up every single person that you ever knew only to find out that they all became the same basic adults as their parents. Like they all had these inevitable conclusions to the point that the only people who were interesting were the ones who were smart enough not to diminish their own legends by going on fucking Facebook in the first place. How did we all get this way? How do we all get put on this trajectory where we all ended up with the same boring life? You know, I miss longing. That longing desire - and it's not Adam, Adam is great. Like Adam's the best case scenario in a very flawed system. The way that it works, the way desire works, longing works, is you cannot get what you want. The thing is then if you get the thing, when you get the thing, you don't get to feel those feelings anymore. Am I the only one that enjoyed feeling those feelings? I'm, I'm worried. The only way that I can feel anything is when things are very bad and I just dunno where that leads. You know? I just think that there's something wrong with me. I wasn't always like this. Was I? Forget it. Honestly, forget I even talk about it. Talking about it isn't making any better, so- 

BUG STUDY (female/male)

A monologue from the play by Emma Goldman-Sherman

A father, an entomologist, spends years away from home working in a rain forest. Here, he has come home for a while, and finds out what his child’s feels about him being an absentee father.

Jane (twenty)-

Start- 

Are you getting a divorce? Cause if you’re getting a divorce, you haven’t changed a bit. Do you still spend your nights dozing over a textbook in that leather chair as if you’re really there?

At least when you are gone, you are gone. Now you’re supposed to be here, but you’re gone at the same time, sort of like . . . I know! I know! You’re Virtual Dad! Plug him in and pretend he loves you! Am I bothering you? Making you want to leave again? Go on. You’re good at it. It will be just like all the other times you’ve left, only this time, you’re already packed. I can hardly look at you standing by your bags.

I can’t tell if you’re coming or going. Do you know the difference, or is there only one way for you? It’s away, right?

This is the moment when you swing by to tell me you’re leaving again, on a longer trip with a bigger grant to study something even stranger than before, before I’m even used to having you around? I’m sorry. I guess I’m feeling cold and unwelcoming. Are you lonely for your long lost family, the one you never really wanted, or do people want families before they’re formed and then freak out that they can’t manage them once they get them? I don’t know. I’m just a kid. How would I know? All I know is that my adults, the ones assigned to me, they don’t seem to want me around, or I can put it differently, they don’t want to be around me. Ah, you say that isn’t true. You say you love me, but doesn’t love mean being available to a person? Most of my life I haven’t even been able to call you, and forget visiting. A person needs shots and a state department visa just to get to you. But you have a great excuse, because the rainforest isn’t wired for cell service. I have this thing about not seeing people in the flesh. My therapist, are you in therapy? You really should be. So Mary Beth, my therapist, says I flunked Peek-A-Boo. It’s that stage in development when a kid starts to trust her primary caretaker, to believe that he or she is there even if she can’t see him. I flunked that part, and if a person isn’t right before my eyes, I don’t necessarily believe they exist. So if you really are here, and you’re really not just stopping in to say you’re leaving again, you’re going to have to do better than this. Silence, your silence, isn’t working for me.

FADE TO BLACK (male)

In Fade To Black, Gram talks about how he wishes he could show love to his sons, but he can’t ever seem to climb over his inner mountain of hatred to do so.

GRAM: 

Start-

I don’t hate my sons. Sure, they’re a pair of nitwits, but it was never about hating them or their mother, they were just targets for my hatred, for this mounting anger I have heaving in my chest. Truth is, I hate myself. I despise who I am as a person. I’ve never been able to take a step beyond myself and be the person I always imagined myself being. How do people do that? You ever wonder? Use yourself for example, you never frown, always cheerful and good natured, it boggles my mind that someone like you actually exists on this planet and yet, I couldn’t come close to be in a place where you are naturally. Why is that? Why am I so unfit to be happy? It’s like I have two people living inside this relic of a shell…there’s the man I’d like to be and the man I actually am…I can never aspire enough to be that other guy, but damn it I know he’s in there somewhere cause he won’t let me breathe. Not a day goes by where he isn’t shouting inside of me to be allowed to come out…I want him to, I want him to so badly Luella…if I can be strong enough, even for a minute, to say the things I really wish I could say, to, to, to speak out my feelings, the one’s that get pushed so far down…maybe I can be free…what do you think?

Land of the Forgotten (male)

In the drama monologue Land of the Forgotten,  George shares his personal truth about his deep retreats in life with a stranger named Kim who he has met in Central Park.

GEORGE:  

Start-

Don’t feel bad for me, believe me, I don’t deserve anyone’s sympathy. I’m aware of the wrongs I’ve done. The problem is figuring out how to undo them and sooner or later you realize the damage is done, like a tornado smashing up a house, most of the pieces remain but things have turned into something else…you can try to pick up the pieces, you can try to mend things, make something new but it’s never the same, it’s always weaker than it was previously, and so after a good while everyone gets tired of rebuilding the same old house and you admit to yourself that it’s not worth the effort, you’re better off walking away, with the hopes of finding something more concrete, but you don’t, you never do, you can’t because of what everything meant to you, so you’re sort of stuck in this bubble, bubble of the mind, that you aren’t strong enough to pop and thankfully you can’t, cause God only knows what more of a mess you’d make of things, so there it is…

Birdman Monologue - Sam (female)

Monologue: Means something to who? You had a career before the third comic book movie, before people began to forget who was inside the bird costume. You're doing a play based on a book that was written 60 years ago, for a thousand rich, old white people whose only real concern is gonna be where they go to have their cake and coffee when it's over. Nobody gives a shit but you. And let's face it, Dad, it's not for the sake of art. It's because you just want to feel relevant again. Well, there's a whole world out there where people fight to be relevant every day. And you act like it doesn't even exist! Things are happening in a place that you willfully ignore, a place that has already forgotten you. I mean who are you? You hate bloggers. You make fun of twitter. You don't even have a Facebook page. You're the one who doesn't exist. You're doing this because you're scared to death, like the rest of us, that you don't matter. And you know what? You're right. You don't. It's not important. You're not important. Get used to it.

It Ends with Us (female)

My father was abusive. Not to me—to my mother. He would get so angry when they fought that sometimes he would hit her. When that happened, he would spend the next week or two making up for it. He would do things like buy her flowers or take us out to a nice dinner. Sometimes he would buy me stuff because he knew I hated it when they fought. When I was a kid, I found myself looking forward to the nights they would fight. Because I knew if he hit her, the two weeks that followed would be great. I’m not sure I’ve ever admitted that to myself. Of course if I could, I would have made it to where he never touched her. But the abuse was inevitable with their marriage, and it became our norm. When I got older, I realized that not doing something about it made me just as guilty. I spent most of my life hating him for being such a bad person, but I’m not so sure I’m much better. Maybe we’re both bad people.

My mother asked me two days ago if I would deliver the eulogy at my father’s funeral today. I told her I didn’t feel comfortable—that I might be crying too hard to speak in front of a crowd—but that was a lie. I just didn’t want to do it because I feel like eulogies should be delivered by those who respected the deceased. And I didn’t much respect my father.

I had no idea what to say. About an hour before the funeral, I told my mother I didn’t want to do it. She said it was simple and that my father would have wanted me to do it. She said all I had to do was walk up to the podium and say five great things about my father. So . . . that’s exactly what I did. I stand up and walk around to the other side of my chair. I stand tall and act like I’m looking out over the same crowded room I was met with this morning. I clear my throat.

“Hello. My name is Lily Bloom, daughter of the late Andrew Bloom. Thank you all for joining us today as we mourn his loss. I wanted to take a moment to honor his life by sharing with you five great things about my father. The first thing . . .

I stood up there for two solid minutes without saying another word. There wasn’t one great thing I could say about that man—so I just stared silently at the crowd until my mother realized what I was doing and had my uncle remove me from the podium. I’m not proud of it. I don’t think. I mean, if I had my way, he would have been a much better person and I would have stood up there and talked for an hour.  

Misery 

Author William Goldman 

Role Annie Wilkes  Actor Kathy Bates 

When I was growing up in Bakersfield, my favorite thing in all the world was to go  to the movies on Saturday afternoons for the Chapter Plays. … I know that, Mr.  Man! They also called them serials. I’m not stupid ya know… Anyway, my favorite  was Rocket Man and once it was a no breaks chapter. The bad guy stuck him in  a car on a mountain road and knocked him out and welded the door shut and  tore out the brakes and started him to his death, and he woke up and tried to  steer and tried to get out but the car went off a cliff before he could escape! And it  crashed and burned and I was so upset and excited, and the next week, you  better believe I was first in line. And they always start with the end of the last  week. And there was Rocket Man, trying to get out, and here comes the cliff, and  just before the car went off the cliff, he jumped free. And all the kids cheered! But  I didn’t cheer. I stood right up and started shouting. This isn’t what happened last  week! Have you all got amnesia? They just cheated us! This isn’t fair! He didn’t  get out of the cockadoodie car!

The American President 

Author Aaron Sorkin 

Role Sydney Ellen Wade 

Actor Annette Bening 

Total failure to achieve any of the objectives for which I was hired. I told him he  was being unreasonable. After all, I did get to dance with the President and ride  in Air Force One a couple of times. But, you know those prickly  environmentalists. It’s always got to be something with them. If it’s not clean air,  then it’s clean water. Like it’s not good enough that I’m on the cover of People  Magazine. … You’ll call him? You mean you’ll call him yourself, personally? It’ll  come from the President? That’s a great idea. I think you should call Leo and  make a deal. He hires me back for, say, 72 days. I go around scaring the hell out  of Congress making them think the President is about to drive through a very  damaging and costly bill. They’ll believe me right? Cause I’m the President’s  Friday Night Girl. Now, I don’t know if we can dip into that well twice, especially  since I’ve lost all credibility in politics, but you never know. I might just pull it off  again. I might be able to give you just the leverage you need to pass some piece  of ground-breaking crime legislation, like a mandatory three-day waiting period  before a five-year old can buy an Uzi. Oh, fuck the sweater! She’ll have to learn  to live with disappointment.

La La Land

Role Mia  

Actor Emma Stone

Because I’ve been to a million auditions and the same thing happens every time.  Where I get interrupted because someone wants to get a sandwich. Or, I’m crying  and they start laughing. Or, there are people sitting in the waiting room, and  they’re, and they’re like me but prettier and better at the…because maybe I’m not  good enough. No, maybe I’m not. Maybe I’m one of those people that has always  wanted to do it, but it’s like a pipe dream for me. You know, and then you, you said  it. You change your dreams and then you grow up. Maybe I’m one of those people  and I’m not supposed to be. And I can go back to school and I can find something  else that I’m supposed to do. ‘Cause I left to do that. And it's been six years and I  don't want to do it anymore.

Monster (female)

Type: Dramatic

Character: Aileen Wuornos, a Daytona Beach prostitute who became a serial killer.

Gender: Female

Age Range: 30's

Summary: Aileen thinks back to a time, long ago, when she was another person.

EILEEN: I always wanted to be in the movies. When I was little, I thought for sure that one day I was gonna be a big, big star. Or maybe just beautiful. Beautiful and rich. Like the women on TV. Yeah, I had a lot of dreams. And I guess you could call me a real romantic ’cause I truly believed that one day, they’d come true. So I dreamed about it for hours. (pause) As the years went by, I learned to stop sharing this with people. They said I was dreaming, but back then, I believed it wholeheartedly. So whenever I was down, I would just escape into my mind, to my other life, where I was someone else. It made me happy to think that all these people just didn’t know yet who I was going to be. But one day, they’d all see. I heard that Marilyn Monroe was discovered in a soda shop and I thought for sure it could be like that. So I started going out real young and I was always secretly looking for who was going to discover me. Was it this guy? Or maybe this one. I never knew. But even if they couldn’t take me all the way, like Marilyn, they would somehow believe in me just enough. They would see me for what I could be and think I was beautiful. Like a diamond in the rough. They would take me away to my new life… and my new world… where everything would be different. Yeah. I lived that way for a long, long time. In my head, dreaming like that. It was nice. (Pause) And one day, it just stopped.

Falling Down- (male)

Author Ebbe Roe Smith

Role William  Foster

Actor Michael Douglas

I want breakfast. So you said. Is that the manager? Can I speak to him please? Hi, I’d like some breakfast. I know you stopped serving breakfast Rick. Sheila told me you stopped serving breakfast. Why am I calling you by your first names? I don’t even know who the hell you are. I still call my boss Mister and I worked for him for seven and a half years but I walk in here all of a sudden total stranger and I’m calling you Rick and Sheila like we’re in some kind of AA meeting? I don’t want to be your buddy Rick, I just want a little breakfast.

Magnolia (1999)

Screenwriter(s): Paul Thomas Anderson

Guilt-ridden trophy wife Linda Partridge (Julianne Moore) gave a speech about the love she had for her near-death husband Earl (Jason Robards) in a confessional to lawyer Alan Kligman (Michael Murphy). She sobbed that she originally married her husband (his second marriage) for his money but now had truly fallen in love with him, and to keep her integrity, wanted to change the will at the last moment, but Kligman could do nothing:

I have to tell you something, I have something to tell you. I want to change his will. Can I change his will? I need to....No, no, no, you see, uhm, I never loved him. I never loved him. Earl. When I met him, when I started, I met him, I f--ked him, and I married him because I wanted his money. Do you understand? I'm telling you this. I've never told anyone, I didn't love him, but now, you know, I know I'm in that will. I mean, we're all there together. We made that f--king thing and all the money I'll get. And I don't want it, because I love him so much now. I've fallen in love with him now for real as he's dying. And, uhm, I look at him, and he's about to go, Alan. He's moments. I took care of him through this, Alan. What now, then? I don't want him to die.

I didn't love him when we met, and I did so many bad things to him that he doesn't know. Things that I want to confess to him, but now I do. I love him....This isn't any f--king medication talking! This isn't -- I don't know, I don't know. Can you give me nothing? You, you have power of attorney! Can you go, can you go in the final f--king moments and change the will? I-I don't want any money. I couldn't live with myself with this thing that I've done. I've done so many bad things. I f--ked around. I f--king cheated on him. I f--king cheated on him, Alan! There. There. You're his lawyer, our lawyer. I am his wife. We are married. I broke the contract of marriage. I f--ked around on him many times. I s--ked other men's cocks...