Monologue Ideas and Acting

Monologue ideas and acting

Idea 1 – Cigarettes and Chocolate

The only reason I know this monologue is because I used it to audition to get into college. I found it a good monologue for me as I received good feedback form when I performed it previously.

The Speech

"When you stop speaking, it’s like stopping eating. The first day there’s something thrilling, and new, before the pain begins. The pain where you want to give up, where you can think of nothing else.

Then the second day, you feel wretched, the third delirious, and then suddenly there’s no appetite, it shrinks, it shrinks, until the prospect of speaking, the thought of words retching from the mouth, how ugly and gross it seems. 

Nothing changes.

How to stop people in their tracks, and make them think. Only if you’re starving, if it’s your son lying in your arms, or you think he might be in that discarded pile of mutilated bodies, or there’s no milk in your breast and the baby’s crying, or the radiation is leaking into your child’s lungs, or the lead or the nitrates or the, or the, or the and all the while skirts get longer, skirts get shorter, skirts get longer, skirts get shorter, poetry is written, the news is read, I buy a different butter at the store and have my hair permed, straightened, coloured, cut, lengthened, all the while my hair keeps growing, I throw away all my skirts, a black bag to Oxfam, lately I’ve been at Oxfam buying back my skirts, I’ve stripped the pine and painted the pine, pulled out the fireplaces and put them back in, I’m on the pill, I’m off the pill, I’m on the pill, I’m off the pill. I’m listening to jazz, swing, jazz, swing, I’m getting my posters framed. I’m telling my women’s group everything. I’m protesting. I’m protesting. I’ve covered my wall with postcards, with posters, with postcards, with posters. No this. Out them. In these. Yes those. No this. Out them. In these. Yes those. The rows. The rows with my friends, my lovers. What were they about? What did they change? The fact is, the facts are, nothing is changed. Nothing has been done. There is neither rhyme nor reason, just tears, tears, people’s pain, people’s rage, their aggression. And silence.

The silence. 

(A silence) 

beautiful last year it was cigarettes, the year before chocolate but this is the best"

***

One of our tutors told us recently that we should refrain from using scripts that we have performed before only because its better to learn more monologues as it shows in your auditions that you have more knowledge of a diverse set on monologues. However, I will keep this one in mind, so I have a monologue to fall back on which is what drama schools would want you to have anyway.

We were also given handouts recently for types of  facial expressions and tongue twister and songs. Some examples were –

Red leather, Yellow leather

She sits shining shoes, shining shoes she sits

Plain bun, plum bun, plain plum bun

Unique New York, New York unique

Songs –

This little light of mine

A baby sardine

Don’t build your house on the Sandyland,  etc

Here are some facial expression we tried out I also wrote some notes.

*1^st pic of sheet*

We would do all of these expressions one by one whilst saying the sentence “The fire exit must be kept clear. 

Handouts

We were given more handouts which I had analysed they are key words that if I know and understand, they will be useful for my monologues. The most important are the five keys. You should use all of these consistently throughout your monologue to make it a very hard hitting piece.