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Women's Monologues

TIME STANDS STILL

I was sitting in a cafe, I'd been shooting at the prison. These women, the inmates, with babies they'd had in prison. And a car bomb went off, a block or two away, in this market. And i just ran to it, took off. Without even thinking. The carnage was... ridiculous. Exploded produce, body parts, women keening. They were digging in the rubble for their children. I started shooting. And suddenly this woman burst out from the smoke... covered in blood... her skin was raw and red and charred - she got so close I could smell it - and her clothes, her top had melted into her, and she was screaming at me. "Go away, go away! No picture, no picture!"And she started pushing me, pushing my camera with her hand on the lens, and I did nothing. I kept shooting. Then, somehow, I ran out of there. I stopped to catch my breath... and check my camera... there was blood on my lens. Her blood was smeared on my lens. I feel so ashamed. I live off the suffering of strangers. I built a career on the sorrows of people I don't know and will never see again. I'm such a fraud.

THIS IS OUR YOUTH - Kenneth Lonergan
Jessica:
Well, it really- I should just listen to my instincts, you know? Because your instincts are never wrong. And it was totally against my instinct to come over here last night and it was definitely against my instincts to sleep with you, but I did and it's too late.  And now my mom is totally furious at me, I probably ruined my friendship with Valerie, and now like Dennis Ziegler thinks I'm like, easy pickins, or something!  And it's not like I even care what he thinks, OK? Because I don't actually know him. Or you. Or Valerie, for that matter!  So it doesn't really matter! I've made new friends before, I can make more new friends now if I have to. So let's just forget the whole thing ever happened, you can just chalk one up in your book, or whatever.  And I'll just know better next time! Hopefully. OK?

Crimes of the Heart

That's right. I put it right inside my ear.Why, I was gonna shoot off my own head!
That's what I was gonna do. Then I heard the back door slamming and suddenly, for some reason, I thought about mama... how'd she hung herself.And here I was about ready to shoot myself. Then I realized-,I realized how I didn't want to kill myself!And she-she probably didn't want to kill herself. She wanted to kill him, and I wanted to kill him, too. I wanted to kill Zachery, not myself 'Cause I-I wanted to live! So, I waited for him to come on into the living room. Then I held out the gun, and I pulled the trigger.

NIGHT MOTHER

‘Night Mother; MOTHER: Jessie! How dare you! How dare you! You think you can just leave whenever you want, like you are watching television here? No, you can't, Jessie. You make me feel like a fool for being alive, child, and you are so wrong! I like it here, and I will stay here until they make me go, until they drag me screaming and I mean screeching into my grave, and you're real smart to get away before then because, I mean, honey, you've never heard noise like that in your life. Who am I talking to? You're gone already, aren't you? I'm looking right through you! I can't stop you because you are already gone.

REASONS TO BE PRETTY

Kate:
Don’t alright? Don’t try to act like it didn’t happen and I’m just having a “girl thing” here because that’s not the story, bud. It is not. (Beat.) We can’t each lunch and kiss each other and start blabbing on the phone next week … we’re done, Greg. Let me start over in a serious fashion, maybe in a relationship or not, I dunno, but if it is in something like that may it please, please, be with someone who can keep from thinking they know everything because you don’t. You don’t know a thing to do with me is what I’ve discovered in my four years with you. Four years that are now gone… so totally lost and gone that it makes me cry when I see any little bit from our time together like a key ring or, or your name light up on my phone... I am finished with our relationship and I’m gonna need you to acknowledge that before I go … Get out...that’s what I want you to do, Greg, get out of my life and leave me alone
These​ ​Shining​ ​Lives
Written by: Melanie Marnich
Charlotte

Stop it Katie! Just shut up! You can’t make it better, okay?! So stop trying with your silly
optimism. It’s ridiculous. Grow up. They did this to us! They did this and they knew it! They
threw us away for a few watches! That’s what we’re worth! That’s what you’re worth! So spare
me the “maybe this” and “maybe that,” okay?! It does me no good. I’m— I’m so sorry. I just
don’t— I don’t have anyone else to— Who’s gonna take care of my mom, Katie? Who’s gonna
take care of her? Okay. That’s that, then. I better get home. You, too. Big day today, huh? I’ll see you later. 

Isabella Arras
Water By The Spoonful

Yazmin: You know where I was gonna be by thirty? Two kids. Equal-housework marriage. Tenure, no question. Waaaay tenured, like by the age of twenty-four. Carnegie Hall debuts: Yazmin Ortiz's "Oratorio for Electric Guitar and Children's Choir." I wrote a list on a piece of paper and dug a hole in Fairmount Park and put it in the ground and said, "When I turn thirty, I'll dig it up and cross it all off." And I promise you I'll never have the courage to go to that spot and face my list. Odessa's done things. You've done things. Ginny did things. What have I done? I couldn't stop your leg from getting chewed up. I didn't hold your hand when you were in the desert popping pills trying to make yourself disappear. I didn't keep Odessa away from that needle. I didn't water a single plant in Ginny's garden. We're in PR and I'm gonna dig a new hole and I'm not putting a wish or a list in there, I'm putting a scream in there. And I'm gonna sow it like the ugliest foulest and most necessary seed in the world and it's going to bloom! This time it's going to bloom!

The Clean House

Lane: I don't hate you. Okay! I hate you! You--glow--with some kind of--thing--I can't acquire that--this thing--sort of glows off you--like a veil--in reverse--you're like anyone's soul mate--You have a balcony--I don't have a balcony--Charles looks at you--and he glows too--you're like two glowworms--he never looked at me like that. I looked at our wedding pictures to see--maybe--he looked at me that way--back then--and no--he didn't--he looked at me with admiration--I didn't know there was another way to be looked at--how could I know--I didn't know his face was capable of doing that--the way he looked at you. You're not sorry. If you were sorry, you wouldn't have done it. We do as we please, and then we say we're sorry. But we're not sorry. We're just--uncomfortable--watching other people in pain.

Virginia: No, you don't know. I wake up in the morning, and I wish that I could sleep through the whole day because it is too painful, but there I am, I'm awake. So I get out of bed. I make eggs for my husband. I throw the eggshells in the disposal. I listen to the sound of delicate eggshells being ground by an indelicate machine. I clean the sink. I sweep the floor. I wipe coffee grounds from the counter. I might have done something different with my life. I might have been a scholar. I might have described one particular ruin with the cold-blooded poetry of which only a first-rate scholar is capable. Why didn't I? I wanted something big, I didn't know how to ask for it. 

Virginia: People who give up the privilege of cleaning their own houses—they’re insane people. If you do not clean: how do you know if you’ve made any progress in life? I love dust. The dust always makes progress. Then I remove the dust. That is progress. If it were not for dust I think I would die. My sister is a wonderful person. She’s a doctor. At an important hospital. My sister has given up the privilege of cleaning her own house. Something deeply personal—she has given up. She does not know how long it takes the dust to accumulate under her bed. She does not know if her husband is sleeping with a prostitute because she does not smell his dirty underwear. All of these things, she fails to know. I know when there is dust on the mirror. Don’t misunderstand me—I’m an educated woman. But if I were to die at any moment during the day, no one would have to clean my kitchen.

Rabbit Hole

Becca: It was his idea. After that open house. Seems his grief goes out the window when it comes to maximizing profits. (Beat) Sorry. I don't even now why I said that. Just being mean. Did Izzy tell you I was taking a continuing ed. class? We're reading Bleak House. Isn't that hilarious? He handed out the syllabus and I just laughed. Bleak House. Of course no one knew what I was laughing at, which was great. It's in Bronxville so no one knows me. I'm normal there. That's what I like best about it. I don't get "the face" every time someone looks at me. You know. "Oh, hi. How ya doin'? Hangin' in there?" I hate it. And you know what's nice? these ladies don't even talk about their kids or their husbands or any of it. It's probably the last thing they wanna talk about. Who'd wanna talk about their families? I know I don't.

Becca: We were in the same aisle as this kid and he wanted these roll-ups, and his mother was saying she wasn't gonna buy them for him. But the kid was getting whiny about it. Which makes sense, because he's five years old and he really wants these roll-ups, but the mother starts ignoring him completely, just turns her face away and pretends he's not there. So that pissed me off for some reason. The way she was ignoring him, instead of trying to explain why he couldn't have them. I don't know why I walked over to her. I just did. And she told me to mind my own business, and then tried to move her cart around me, but ran over my foot by accident, so I smacked her. (Beat) I know. It was awful, and then the boy started crying. I felt terrible, but she pissed me off. She was ignoring him. I wanted to shake her: "Look at him. Don't pretend he isn't there!" But I didn't say that.

Becca: Do you really not know me, Howie? Do you really not know how utterly impossible that would be? To erase him? No matter how many things I give to charity, or how many art projects I box up, do you really think I don't see him every second of every day? And okay, I'm trying to make things a little easier on myself by hiding some of the photos, and giving away the clothes, but that does not mean I'm trying to erase him. That tape was an accident. And believe me, I will beat myself up about it forever, I'm sure. Like everything else that I could've prevented but didn't. It feels like I don't feel bad enough for you. I'm not mourning enough for your taste. Or mourning in the right way. But let me just say, Howie, that I am mourning as much as you are. And my grief is just as real and awful as yours.

Izzy: So it's just the baby then. The fact that I'm having a baby. She thinks I can't do it. Right? I'm not cut out to be a good mother? Maybe I'm not as organized as Becca, or homey, or whatever, but I'm talking about me being a capable person who can raise a child, and look after it and protect it. I resent the feeling I get from her, and you too sometimes, honest, that I don't deserve the baby. Or that I'm not mature enough, or smart enough or something, to take care of it. I mean, my God, if my mother could do it, how hard could it be? (Beat) Hey, that's not what I ... I just want to feel like you guys have some faith in me, because I'm up to it.

reasons to be pretty

Carly: I've been followed. Not just out to my car but all the way home ... slowly going along behind me to see where I live. Or work. Or though the mall, from store to store, by people. This happens so much, I mean, not like every day, but enough that I couldn't even give you a number. And for what? Because I'm great or smart or have this, this wonderful witty way about me? No. How could anybody know that from chasing me around Safeway? The answer is--they couldn't. Nothing to do with me, that's what the truth of it is. It's all about this... My face. I was born with it, people, that's all--and Kent wouldn't be seen in public with me if I didn't have it. That's a fact.

All four of these monologues are from the play The Shape of Things by Neil LaBute.

 Evelyn: It’s totally the point… how about you, Jenny, why don’t you let her speak? Did you like what you saw? Did you wanna see anything else? Huh? Okay, then… all I’m saying is that, in my opinion, (it wasn’t pornography), it was a statement. Of course, that’s the beauty of statements, like art, they’re subjunctive. You and I can think completely different things and we can both be right… unless, and this seems quite probable, you just can’t stand to lose an argument. Jesus, you’re really the obnoxious type, just shut up, alright?

Evelyn: And then you made out, most natural thing in the world... how big was that mistake? I don’t care about what happened. I don’t. I just want the truth...I told you about what I did- you think I wanted to kiss that guy?- I only did it for the effect. But I’m asking you... What else went on? I deserve to know. Even if I tell you I know something else went on, you’re sticking with nothing? I don’t believe you.

Jenny: Hey look, I don’t know why I’m here, I guess I came back to say “ I’m sorry.” Sorry if I’ve offended you in some way, or done something to make you so indifferent to me, cold or whatever. And I don’t mean what’s happened, I don’t, because I think you’ve been this way the whole time I’ve known you. So… sorry I’m not an artsy person or cool enough, sorry about that. But as far as just being a person, like an average-type person… I’m pretty okay. I am. The came out kind of bad, I mean, dumb, so I’m going now, ‘kay?

Adam: We had some fun, right? But, that’s subjunctive. Well I had some fun, fell in love and all that… and you got yourself a grade. Congrats. Seriously… but do me a favor, don’t fool yourself and think that this is “art.” It’s a sick joke, but it’s not “art.” Picasso knew the difference. That’s what made him Picasso. And if I’m wrong about that, if somehow puking up your neuroses all over people’s laps is actually Art, then you ought to at least realize there’s a price to it all. If you can’t at least see that much… then you’re about two inches away from using babies to make lamp shapes and calling it “furniture.”
The Whale 
Liz- 
So listen. You're just a kid, you don't know anything. But I want to be very clear with you about a few things if you're going to keep coming over here. 
(Pause)
I know this is fun for you. You get to travel around, act superior to everyone else. Plus you get to go home, get married, get some boring job, have tons of kids, and when you die you get your own planet. It all sounds pretty awesome. But, there are other kinds of people. People like Charlie, for whom this amazing plan doesn't fit. You can't fit a round peg into a square hole. 

Other Desert Cities by Jon Robin Baitz
Brooke: Look - I take the lovely little pills, I see the blessed Doctor Leighton every week, twice a week, and I do yoga, and I eat right and I have learned optimism just like the magazines told us to. And I know how to handle it. Daddy, look at me. I've had tough times and everything that has happened - everything - has made me stronger. I'm your child and mom's too. Two old oak trees  and I'm oak too. How can you say that "I don't know what it feels like." I lost my older brother. He was my best friend - you know I don't make friends easily, he was most of my world and - then he was gone - we can't just pretend it never happened. 

a_public_reading.docx
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bobrauschenberbergamerica.pdf
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elective_affinities.docx
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equus.pdf
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fading_joy.docx
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fuddy_meers.pdf
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quills.pdf
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reasons_to_be_pretty.pdf
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