Shakespeare Monologes?

Question

I am entering a Shakespeare Monologue contest and I need help finding a famous speech or Soliloquy. It must be between 10 and 20 lines and be spoken by a female character. I would really like to find one that involves crying. Thanks for any help you can give.

Answer 1

I concur with all of the advice you've been given already, especially that you avoid one of the more famous speeches... they'll be what everyone else is doing and the adjudicators will be sick to death of hearing the same thing over and over. One more piece of advice: once you choose your monologue, read the ENTIRE play.

I'll give you a few more speeches that I like:

PORTIA (from Julius Caesar)(I've edited this a bit)
Brutus is wise, and, were he not in health, 885
He would embrace the means to come by it.
Is Brutus sick? and is it physical
To walk unbraced and suck up the humours
Of the dank morning? What, is Brutus sick, 890
And will he steal out of his wholesome bed,
To dare the vile contagion of the night
And tempt the rheumy and unpurged air
To add unto his sickness? No, my Brutus;
You have some sick offence within your mind, 895
Which, by the right and virtue of my place,
I ought to know of: and, upon my knees,
I charm you, by my once-commended beauty,
By all your vows of love and that great vow
Which did incorporate and make us one, 900
That you unfold to me, yourself, your half,
Why you are heavy.
Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus,
Is it excepted I should know no secrets
That appertain to you? Am I yourself 910
But, as it were, in sort or limitation,
To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed,
And talk to you sometimes? Dwell I but in the suburbs
Of your good pleasure? If it be no more,
Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife. 915

EMILIA (from Othello)(This one is fairly popular)
But I do think it is their husbands' faults
If wives do fall: say that they slack their duties, 3115
And pour our treasures into foreign laps,
Or else break out in peevish jealousies,
Throwing restraint upon us; or say they strike us,
Or scant our former having in despite;
Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace, 3120
Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know
Their wives have sense like them: they see and smell
And have their palates both for sweet and sour,
As husbands have. What is it that they do
When they change us for others? Is it sport? 3125
I think it is: and doth affection breed it?
I think it doth: is't frailty that thus errs?
It is so too: and have not we affections,
Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?
Then let them use us well: else let them know, 3130
The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.

MARINA (from Pericles) (this one isn't as cohesive without the surrounding text, but its certain that you'll be the only one doing it)

Hail, sir! my lord, lend ear.
I am a maid,
My lord, that ne'er before invited eyes,
But have been gazed on like a comet: she speaks,
My lord, that, may be, hath endured a grief 2280
Might equal yours, if both were justly weigh'd.
Though wayward fortune did malign my state,
My derivation was from ancestors
Who stood equivalent with mighty kings:
But time hath rooted out my parentage, 2285
And to the world and awkward casualties
Bound me in servitude.
[Aside]
I will desist;
But there is something glows upon my cheek, 2290
And whispers in mine ear, 'Go not till he speak.'

good sir,
Whither will you have me? Why do you weep?
It may be, 2390
You think me an impostor: no, good faith;
I am the daughter to King Pericles,
If good King Pericles be.

TAMORA (from Titus Andronicus) (Forgive the guess, but you seem young, so you may not have the age to do this monologue realistically, but here it is)
Not so, my lord; the gods of Rome forfend
I should be author to dishonour you!
But on mine honour dare I undertake 485
For good Lord Titus' innocence in all;
Whose fury not dissembled speaks his griefs:
Then, at my suit, look graciously on him;
Lose not so noble a friend on vain suppose,
Nor with sour looks afflict his gentle heart. 490
[Aside to SATURNINUS] My lord, be ruled by me,]
be won at last;
Dissemble all your griefs and discontents:
You are but newly planted in your throne;
Lest, then, the people, and patricians too, 495
Upon a just survey, take Titus' part,
And so supplant you for ingratitude,
Which Rome reputes to be a heinous sin,
Yield at entreats; and then let me alone:
I'll find a day to massacre them all 500
And raze their faction and their family,
The cruel father and his traitorous sons,
To whom I sued for my dear son's life,
And make them know what 'tis to let a queen
Kneel in the streets and beg for grace in vain. 505
[Aloud]
Come, come, sweet emperor; come, Andronicus;
Take up this good old man, and cheer the heart
That dies in tempest of thy angry frown.

PHEBE (from As You LIke It)
I would not be thy executioner;
I fly thee, for I would not injure thee. 1660
Thou tell'st me there is murder in mine eye.
'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable,
That eyes, that are the frail'st and softest things,
Who shut their coward gates on atomies,
Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murderers! 1665
Now I do frown on thee with all my heart;
And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee.
Now counterfeit to swoon; why, now fall down;
Or, if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame,
Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers. 1670
Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee.
Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains
Some scar of it; lean upon a rush,
The cicatrice and capable impressure
Thy palm some moment keeps; but now mine eyes, 1675
Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not;
Nor, I am sure, there is not force in eyes
That can do hurt.


Well, I hope that's a start. These are monologues that have worked for me. Hope they do for you as well. (Oh, and I totally agree with the KING JOHN one... that's awesome and you won't hear it much)

Answer 2

My suggestion would be to try one that is not famous. People who have heard, seen, or performed monologues will naturally have the other performance in the back their heads instead of what is going on in front of them. If its a new piece they will be fully enthralled. Look through a Complete Works of Shakespeare book, and read as many different plays as you can (especially tragedies if you want a serious piece). When you find a character you can relate to emotionally AND PHYSICALLY keep it in mind. I cannot stress this enough: you must read the play; you cannot do justice to the part otherwise. The most important thing is that you understand everything you are saying and why you are saying it.

Break a Leg!

Answer 3

The ones given by other answerers are good. One suggestion is that you might want to pick something a bit more obscure. The judges will have heard all of those a few thousand times.

Try Constance from King John. Her final scene (Act III scene 4, I think) is all about how her son has just been murdered. There are a collection of speeches there. You can edit them down into a single speech, but here's the final segment of it, which is full of good scene-chewing, wailing-and-gnashing-of-teeth lines (and the judges have probably never heard it):

Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
Then, have I reason to be fond of grief?
Fare you well: had you such a loss as I,
I could give better comfort than you do.
I will not keep this form upon my head,
When there is such disorder in my wit.
O Lord! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son!
My life, my joy, my food, my all the world!
My widow-comfort, and my sorrows' cure!

Answer 4

I'm currently using a monologue from The Tempest. In this scene Miranda is begging her father Prospero (a powerful magician) to stop the wild sea from causing a ship wreck. She is devistated by the ship wreck and needs her father to use his magic to stop the choas. You could very well do some crying in this one.
Act I
SCENE II. The island. Before PROSPERO'S cell.

Enter PROSPERO and MIRANDA
MIRANDA :
If by your art, my dearest father, you have
Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.
The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,
But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek,
Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffered
With those that I saw suffer: a brave vessel,
Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her,
Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock
Against my very heart. Poor souls, they perish'd.
Had I been any god of power, I would
Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere
It should the good ship so have swallow'd and
The fraughting souls within her.

Hope it works out for you!!!

Answer 5

Well, Helena in "Midsummer Nights Dream" has that great "O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent..." monologue which, while comic, gives the actress an opportunity to be very upset indeed.

Hermione in "Winter's Tale" has a very powerful monologue in "Sir, spare your threats: The bug which you would fright me with I seek." She speaks about her husband's betrayal and the death of her two children with great suppressed rage and sorrow.

Helena has a wonderful monologue in "All's Well That Ends Well" that begins "'Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France.'" She has managed to get her beloved Bertram to marry her (quite against his will) and has just discovered he has sent himself to war rather than be wed to her.

You'll need to do some editing on the second and third if you choose them, but they are both excellent monologues that are probably rarely done in competition.

Good luck!

Answer 6

Read any of his tragedies and you'll be able to find a few. Probably the most famous would be Lady MacBeth's soliloquy from ACT V where she speaks of the blood that won't come out.

Answer 7

You've already had some nice suggestions here. Because you have so MANY to choose from, my two cents is that you avoid soliloquies, and stick to pieces where your character is actually speaking directly to another person or persons. These are FAR more effective in solo performance.

Here's another for you to look at: Desdemona's little speech in the Senate chamber in "Othello," where she pleads to be allowed to follow her husband to Cyprus. It's brief, but very beautiful:

DESDEMONA
That I did love the Moor to live with him,
My downright violence and storm of fortunes
May trumpet to the world: my heart's subdued
Even to the very quality of my lord:
I saw Othello's visage in his mind,
And to his honour and his valiant parts
Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.
So that, dear lords, if I be left behind,
A moth of peace, and he go to the war,
The rites for which I love him are bereft me,
And I a heavy interim shall support
By his dear absence. Let me go with him.

Answer 8

You must try one of "much ado about nothing" specially one from Beatrice, I believe she is one of the most fascinating female characters from Shakespeare, even if the play in which she appears is not a tragedy.

Answer 9

Take a look at Macbeth, lots of tragedy there, so that would cover your crying thing.

Of course, the most glaringly obvious one would be Juliet's monologue. you know "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" yadda yadda yadda.