871 Best Play Monologues – Page 87 of 88

A Marriage has been Arranged (Crockstead)

Category: Play Role: Crockstead From: A Marriage has been Arranged

Crockstead says

Lady Aline, I am a self-made man, as the foolish phrase has it–a man whose early years were spent in savage and desolate places, where the devil had much to say; a man in whom whatever there once had been of natural kindness was very soon kicked out. I was poor, and lonely, for thirty-two years: I have been rich, and lonely, for ten. My millions have been made honestly enough; but poverty and wretchedness had left their mark on me, and you will find very few men with a good word to say for Harrison Crockstead. I have no polish, or culture, or tastes. Art wearies me, literature sends me to sleep– I will pass, then, to more intimate matters. In a little township in Australia–a horrible place where there was gold–I met a woman whom I loved. She was what is technically known as a bad woman. She ran away with another man. I tracked them to Texas, and in a mining camp there I shot the man. I wanted to take the woman back, but she refused. That has been my solitary love affair; and I shall never love any woman again as I loved her. I think that is all that I have to tell you. And now–will you marry me, Lady Aline?

A Doll’s House (Helmer)

Category: Play Role: Helmer From: A Doll's House

Helmer says

What a horrible awakening! All these eight years–she who was my joy and pride–a hypocrite, a liar–worse, worse–a criminal! The unutterable ugliness of it all!–For shame! For shame! I ought to have suspected that something of the sort would happen. I ought to have foreseen it. All your father’s want of principle–be silent!–all your father’s want of principle has come out in you. No religion, no morality, no sense of duty–. How I am punished for having winked at what he did! I did it for your sake, and this is how you repay me. Now you have destroyed all my happiness. You have ruined all my future. It is horrible to think of! I am in the power of an unscrupulous man; he can do what he likes with me, ask anything he likes of me, give me any orders he pleases–I dare not refuse. And I must sink to such miserable depths because of a thoughtless woman! No fine speeches, please. Your father had always plenty of those ready, too. What good would it be to me if you were out of the way, as you say? Not the slightest. He can make the affair known everywhere; and if he does, I may be falsely suspected of having been a party to your criminal action. Very likely people will think I was behind it all–that it was I who prompted you! And I have to thank you for all this–you whom I have cherished during the whole of our married life. Do you understand now what it is you have done for me?

A Doll’s House (Helmer)

Category: Play Role: Helmer From: A Doll's House

Helmer says

Yes, do. Try and calm yourself, and make your mind easy again, my frightened little singing-bird. Be at rest, and feel secure; I have broad wings to shelter you under. How warm and cosy our home is, Nora. Here is shelter for you; here I will protect you like a hunted dove that I have saved from a hawk’s claws; I will bring peace to your poor beating heart. It will come, little little, Nora, believe me. Tomorrow morning you will look upon it all quite differently; soon everything will be just as it was before. Very soon you won’t need me to assure you that I have forgiven you; you will yourself feel the certainty that I have done so. Can you suppose I should ever think of such a thing as repudiating you, or even reproaching you? You have no idea what a true man’s heart is like, Nora. There is something so indescribably sweet and satisfying, to a man, in the knowledge that he has forgiven his wife–forgiven her freely, and with all his heart. It seems as if that had made her, as it were, doubly his own; he has given her a new life, so to speak; and she has in a way become both wife and child to him. So you shall be for me after this, my little scared, helpless darling. Have no anxiety about anything, Nora; only be frank and open with me, and I will serve as will and conscience both to you–. What is this? Not gone to bed? Have you changed your things?

A Doll’s House (Krogstad)

Category: Play Role: Krogstad From: A Doll's House

Krogstad says

I will tell you. I want to rehabilitate myself, Mrs Helmer; I want to get on; and in that your husband must help me. For the last year and a half I have not had a hand in anything dishonourable, amid all that time I have been struggling in most restricted circumstances. I was content to work my way up step step. Now I am turned out, and I am not going to be satisfied with merely being taken into favour again. I want to get on, I tell you. I want to get into the Bank again, in a higher position. Your husband must make a place for me–He will; I know him; he dare not protest. And as soon as I am in there again with him, then you will see! Within a year I shall be the manager’s right hand. It will be Nils Krogstad and not Torvald Helmer who manages the Bank.

A Doll’s House (Nora)

Category: Play Role: Nora From: A Doll's House

Nora says

But it was absolutely necessary that he should not know! My goodness, can’t you understand that? It was necessary he should have no idea what a dangerous condition he was in. It was to me that the doctors came and said that his life was in danger, and that the only thing to save him was to live in the south. Do you suppose I didn’t try, first of all, to get what I wanted as if it were for myself? I told him how much I should love to travel abroad like other young wives; I tried tears and entreaties with him; I told him that he ought to remember the condition I was in, and that he ought to be kind and indulgent to me; I even hinted that he might raise a loan. That nearly made him angry, Christine. He said I was thoughtless, and that it was his duty as my husband not to indulge me in my whims and caprices–as I believe he called them. Very well, I thought, you must be saved–and that was how I came to devise a way out of the difficulty–No, never. Papa died just at that time. I had meant to let him into the secret and beg him never to reveal it. But he was so ill then–alas, there never was any need to tell him. Good Heavens, no! How could you think so? A man who has such strong opinions about these things! And besides, how painful and humiliating it would be for Torvald, with his manly independence, to know that he owed me anything! It would upset our mutual relations altogether; our beautiful happy home would no longer be what it is now.

A Doll’s House (Nora)

Category: Play Role: Nora From: A Doll's House

Nora says

You have never loved me. You have only thought it pleasant to be in love with me. It is perfectly true, Torvald. When I was at home with papa, he told me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same opinions; and if I differed from him I concealed the fact, because he would not have liked it. He called me his doll-child, and he played with me just as I used to play with my dolls. And when I came to live with you–I mean that I was simply transferred from papa’s hands into yours. You arranged everything according to your own taste, and so I got the same tastes as your else I pretended to, I am really not quite sure which–I think sometimes the one and sometimes the other. When I look back on it, it seems to me as if I had been living here like a poor woman–just from hand to mouth. I have existed merely to perform tricks for you, Torvald. But you would have it so. You and papa have committed a great sin against me. It is your fault that I have made nothing of my life.

A Dolls House” (Nora)

Category: Play Role: Nora From: A Doll's House

NORA: It is perfectly true, Torvald. When I was at home with papa, he told me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same opinions; and if I differed from him I concealed the fact, because he would not have liked it. He called me his doll-child, and he played with me just as I used to play with my dolls. And when I came to live with you…I mean that I was simply transferred from papa”s hand into yours. You arranged everything according to your own taste, and so I got the same tastes as you – or else I pretended to, I am really not quite sure which – I think sometimes the one and sometimes the other. When I look back on it, it seems to me as if I had been living here like a poor woman – just from hand to mouth. I have existed merely to perform tricks for you, Torvald. But you would have it so. You and papa have committed a great sin against me. It is your fault that I have made nothing of my life.You neither think nor talk like the man I could bind myself to. As soon as your fear was over – and it was not fear for what threatened me, but for what might happen to you – when the whole things was past, as far as you were concerned it was exactly as if nothing at all had happened. Exactly as before, I was your little skylark, your doll, which you would in future treat with doubly gentle care, because it was so brittle and fragile. Torvald – it was then it dawned upon me that for eight years I had been living here with a strange man, and had borne him three children. Oh! I can”t bear to think of it! I could tear myself into little bits!RelatedShareTweetPin

I mean that I was simply transferred from papa”s hand into yours. You arranged everything according to your own taste, and so I got the same tastes as you – or else I pretended to, I am really not quite sure which – I think sometimes the one and sometimes the other. When I look back on it, it seems to me as if I had been living here like a poor woman – just from hand to mouth. I have existed merely to perform tricks for you, Torvald. But you would have it so. You and papa have committed a great sin against me. It is your fault that I have made nothing of my life.You neither think nor talk like the man I could bind myself to. As soon as your fear was over – and it was not fear for what threatened me, but for what might happen to you – when the whole things was past, as far as you were concerned it was exactly as if nothing at all had happened. Exactly as before, I was your little skylark, your doll, which you would in future treat with doubly gentle care, because it was so brittle and fragile. Torvald – it was then it dawned upon me that for eight years I had been living here with a strange man, and had borne him three children. Oh! I can”t bear to think of it! I could tear myself into little bits!RelatedShareTweetPin

You neither think nor talk like the man I could bind myself to. As soon as your fear was over – and it was not fear for what threatened me, but for what might happen to you – when the whole things was past, as far as you were concerned it was exactly as if nothing at all had happened. Exactly as before, I was your little skylark, your doll, which you would in future treat with doubly gentle care, because it was so brittle and fragile. Torvald – it was then it dawned upon me that for eight years I had been living here with a strange man, and had borne him three children. Oh! I can”t bear to think of it! I could tear myself into little bits!RelatedShareTweetPin

A Bright Room Called Day (Zillah)

Category: Play Role: Zillah From: A Bright Room Called Day

ZILLAH: Dear Mr. President, I know you will never read this letter. I”m fully aware of the fact that letters to you don”t even make it to the White House, that they”re brought to an office building in Maryland where civil-servant types are paid to answer the sane ones. Crazy, hostile letters – like mine – the ones written in crayon on butcher paper, the ones made of letters cut out of magazines – these get sent to the FBI, analyzed, Xeroxed and burned.But I send them anyway, once a day, and do you know why? Because the loathing I pour into these pages is so ripe, so full-to-bursting, that it is my firm belief that anyone touching them will absorb into their hands some of the toxic energy contained therein. This toxin will be passed upwards – it is the nature of bureaucracies to pass things vertically – till eventually, through a network of handshakes, the Under-Secretary of Outrageous Falsehoods will shake hands with the Secretary for Pernicious Behavior under the Cloak of Night, who will, on a weekly basis in Cabinet meetings, shake hands with you before you nod off to sleep. In this way, through osmosis, little droplets of contagion are being rubbed into your leathery flesh every day – in this great country of ours there must be thousands of people who are sending you poisoned post. We wait for the day when all the grams and drams and dollops of detestation will destroy you. We attack from below. Our day will come. You can try to stop me. You can raise the price of stamps again. I”ll continue to write. I”m saving up for a word processor. For me and my cause, money is no object.Love, ZillahRelatedShareTweetPin

But I send them anyway, once a day, and do you know why? Because the loathing I pour into these pages is so ripe, so full-to-bursting, that it is my firm belief that anyone touching them will absorb into their hands some of the toxic energy contained therein. This toxin will be passed upwards – it is the nature of bureaucracies to pass things vertically – till eventually, through a network of handshakes, the Under-Secretary of Outrageous Falsehoods will shake hands with the Secretary for Pernicious Behavior under the Cloak of Night, who will, on a weekly basis in Cabinet meetings, shake hands with you before you nod off to sleep. In this way, through osmosis, little droplets of contagion are being rubbed into your leathery flesh every day – in this great country of ours there must be thousands of people who are sending you poisoned post. We wait for the day when all the grams and drams and dollops of detestation will destroy you. We attack from below. Our day will come. You can try to stop me. You can raise the price of stamps again. I”ll continue to write. I”m saving up for a word processor. For me and my cause, money is no object.Love, ZillahRelatedShareTweetPin

Love, ZillahRelatedShareTweetPin

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Category: Play From: 0

I had a baby, yea. Forget about my addiction. Forget about my recovery. I had a baby when I wasn’t but thirteen years old. I had her out behind the shed when my daddy told me he didn’t want to get any blood on the carpet. He was right to be careful. When the baby came, I spilled more blood than even God could imagine when he came up with the human heart. But I was young and strong, my daddy always said I was a tomboy with a capital “T”, and I felt like I could spill an ocean’s worth and not feel the effect of my life draining away. If I died and came back to life I didn’t notice it enough to tell it.

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Category: Play From: 0

I’m too old for this shit.