Male Monologue suggestions?

October 30, 2007 11:59 AM

Looking for a good male monologue, about two minutes in length and preferably in the public domain...

I'm looking for a two minute monologue for a male character that conveys a couple different emotions. I'd prefer something dramatic and classical, but I'm open to any comedic or contemporary suggestions as well.

Shakespeare is fine, but I'm looking for something not quite as well known as, say, the "to be or not to be" monologue from Hamlet or the Queen Mab speech from Romeo and Juliet. However, I should mention that this monologue is NOT for an audition, so something that casting directors in particular may have heard over-and-over is not out.

It would also be amazing if it were part of the public domain, but that's not necessary either.

Any suggestions? Thanks so much in advance!

posted by sbuffy to media & arts (17 comments total)

Anything from Glengarry Glen Ross would be pretty nifty.

Maybe Alec Baldwin's brass balls speech?
posted by ian1977 at 12:05 PM on October 30, 2007

Colin's Movie Monologue Page
posted by sharkfu at 12:09 PM on October 30, 2007

I've heard actors do Jabberwocky with some success.
posted by occhiblu at 12:09 PM on October 30, 2007

There are lots of books that each have dozens of monologues all categorized and timed. Your local library will almost certainly have at least a few such books.

Don't worry about copyright issues. Something as short as a two minute monologue is completely covered under fair use.
posted by nedpwolf at 12:11 PM on October 30, 2007

Check out Bernard's monologues from Sexual Perversity in Chicago. Always a hit for monologue-based auditions and drama classes.

What nedpwolf said about copyright -- it's just not an issue for most usages of monologues (e.g. auditions, drama classes, etc).
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 12:16 PM on October 30, 2007

Sam Shepard's Curse of the Starving Class has a great monologue for a man. Google Books doesn't have the beginning of it, but here's the end.
posted by peep at 12:40 PM on October 30, 2007

I've always thought that Ben Affleck's Speech from Boiler Room was brilliant and might fit the bill. Profane, though.
posted by mhz at 12:44 PM on October 30, 2007

"I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore."
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 1:10 PM on October 30, 2007

The Gettysburg Address
posted by jeffamaphone at 2:20 PM on October 30, 2007

Al Pacino's rant in Scent of a Woman.
posted by fandango_matt at 2:26 PM on October 30, 2007

Thanks so much for the suggestions so far, everyone.

Just a couple clarifications. This is for an animation project, not for any sort of live-action audition, hence my copyright concerns (however, the piece is not going to profit in any way, it's simply a demo reel piece, which is why copyright might not be an issue).

Because it is going to be animated, I'd rather not use something from a movie, although I got a huge kick out of ian1977's "brass balls" speech suggestion, as that is one of my team's all-time favorite monologue pieces and we watch it frequently. We'd really like something like that, but from classical literature.
posted by sbuffy at 2:42 PM on October 30, 2007

Sir John Falstaff, from King Henry IV, Part II, on the benefits of fortified wine (sherry or, in his time, sherri-sack) [begin at line 48]:

Falstaff:"I would you had but the wit: ’twere better than your dukedom. Good faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth not love me; nor a man cannot make him laugh; but that’s no marvel, he drinks no wine. There’s never none of these demure boys come to any proof; for thin drink doth so over-cool their blood, and making many fish-meals, that they fall into a kind of male green-sickness; and then, when they marry, they get wenches. They are generally fools and cowards, which some of us should be too but for inflammation. A good sherris-sack hath a two-fold operation in it. It ascends me into the brain; dries me there all the foolish and dull and crudy vapours which environ it; makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble fiery and delectable shapes; which, deliver’d o’er to the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The second property of your excellent sherris is, the warming of the blood; which, before cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice: but the sherris warms it and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extreme. It illumineth the face, which, as a beacon, gives warning to all the rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then the vital commoners and inland petty spirits muster me all to their captain, the heart, who, great and puffed up with this retinue, doth any deed of courage; and this valour comes of sherris. So that skill in the weapon is nothing without sack, for that sets it a-work; and learning, a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil till sack commences it and sets it in act and use. Hereof comes it that Prince Harry is valiant; for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, sterile, and bare land, manured, husbanded, and tilled, with excellent endeavour of drinking good and good store of fertile sherris, that he is become very hot and valiant. If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle I would teach them should be, to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack."

A first rate rendition of this, by Orson Welles as Falstaff, can be seen in Welles' 1965 film "Chimes at Midnight," which I heartily recommend, if you, like Welles and I, have any love for the fat old rascal and good knight.
posted by paulsc at 4:38 PM on October 30, 2007

The speech that the monster gives to Dr. Frankenstein about how pissed he is to have been created has always been one of my favorites.
posted by cda at 5:50 PM on October 30, 2007

i like eric bogosian (a pretty awesome theatre artist, maybe best known for writing & starring in the film "talk radio").
his play "pounding nails in the floor with my forehead" has a range of expressive, often aggressive male characters.
here are some mp3s of the show that might be worth a listen.
posted by twistofrhyme at 6:36 PM on October 30, 2007

Seeing as you're not ruling out Shakespeare, I'd heartily recommend the less-well-known Hamlet soliloquy, 'Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I' (Act 2, Sc. 2). It takes a rather abrupt turn about halfway through (when it starts talking about vengeance) and then builds to a pretty frightening climax. Gets me every time...
posted by dogsbody at 6:43 PM on October 30, 2007

I think the St. Crispin's day speech from Henry V (IV, iii) meets the bill.
posted by tew at 5:32 AM on October 31, 2007

He could probably read (dramatically) all, or just about all, of Poe's The Telltale Heart in two or three minutes.
posted by OilPull at 10:45 AM on October 31, 2007