Monologues for Men:

1. Punk Rock by Simon Stephens.

CHADWICK:

Human beings are pathetic. Everything human beings do finishes up bad in the end.
Everything good human beings ever make is built on something monstrous. Nothing lasts.
We certainly won’t. We could have made something really extraordinary and we won’t.
We’ve been around 100 thousand years. We’ll have died out before the next two hundred.
You know what we’ve got to look forward to? You know what will define the next two
hundred years? Religions will become brutalized; crime rates will become hysterical;
everybody will become addicted to internet sex; suicide will become fashionable; there’ll
be famine; there’ll be floods; there’ll be fires in the major cities of the Western World. Our
education systems will become battered. Our health services unsustainable; our police
forces unmanageable; our governments corrupt. There’ll be open brutality in the streets;
there’ll be nuclear war; massive depletion of resources on every level; insanely increasing
third world population. It’s happening already. It’s happening now. Thousands die every
summer from floods in the Indian monsoon season. Africans from Senegal wash up on the
beaches of the Mediterranean and get looked after by guilty liberal holiday makers.
Somalians wait in hostels in Malta or prison islands north of Australia. Hundreds die of heat
or fire every year in Paris. Or California. Or Athens. The oceans will rise. The cities will
flood. The power stations will flood. Airports will flood. Species will vanish forever.
Including ours. So if you think I'm worried by you calling me names Bennet you little, little
boy you are fucking kidding yourself.

WILLIAM:

See, the main question people have been asking me is why I did it.

Why do people keep asking me that?

‘Why did you do it, William? What did you do it for? What did you do that? Why did you do
this?’

I don’t know. I don’t care. It’s a pointless question. It’s a stupid question. It’s a boring
question. Next question please. Next question please. Next question please. Was it
because of my mum? No. Was it because of my dad? No. Was it because of my brother? No.
Was it because of my school? No. Was it because of the teachers? No. Was it because of
Lilly? No. Was it the music I was listening to? No. Was it the film I saw? No. Was it the
books that I read? No. Was it the things I saw on the internet? No.

I did it because I could.

There was a bullet left in the gun. I was going to shoot myself. I actually put the gun to my
mouth. Did you hear about that. Tanya was there, she could tell you this.
I needed a piss.

So, I just like, I just did a piss there. In the classroom. On the floor.

It felt fucking amazing. I thought if I died I’d never feel that, that relief.

2. Really Really by Paul Downs Collaizo

JOHNSON:

Look this whole thing is a pretty big deal, alright? A big fuckin deal. I go to bed early every
night. I can count on one and a half hands the number of times I’ve been drunk. I am a
cautious mother fucker. I haven’t been able to breathe for all 21 years of my life because I
am trying, desperately, to become the man that I want to be. And I’m sorry, but there are
just too many ways to fuck that up. And I won’t allow it.

I know you. I know you wouldn’t do that. Not everybody knows you. Not the dean. Not
my parents. Not the press.

And don’t tell me I’m not a good friend, because I am. I sit in class and watch you doodle
while I scramble to find a blank page in my notebook. And it’s like clockwork. I schedule
time before a test to help you before you even ask. And I’ve never once bitched. I come to
your house for parties when you know full well that I hate parties. I hate them. Not
exaggerating. But I come because I’m a good friend. And when Natalie dumped you, I was
the only one who didn’t curse her out right away because I knew you still loved her and
didn’t want to see her get hurt, regardless of the shit she put you through. Why? Because I
am a good friend, Davis. You should know that. So, I’m sorry if on the eve of my graduation
from college I don’t want to be thrown into the midst of a scandal, and knowing your
parents and Leigh’s background quite possibly a national scandal, regardless of who’s right
or wrong. Be a good friend, Davis. Don’t bring me down with you.

COOPER:

I just need to say a few things to you.

Jimmy…

(Beat)

Jimmy – you’re my friend. We’re both sort of in unfortunate positions here. I mean Davis is
my friend. He’s like my brother, you know that.

Ok. And generally, I stand behind him in everything he does and everything he says. Earlier
he told me that the weather was supposed to be nice today. Weather report said rain, he
told me nice. There’s a monsoon outside and I’m wearing shorts. Am I making my point?
I’m thinking I am. Anyway, at the party on Saturday I had my ear pressed up against the
door. Now I was drunk so I don’t remember the whole thing. And the next morning I get
curious. I want to know what happened. Whatever Davis says happened, happened. But he
doesn’t say anything. There’s nothing for me to believe because he doesn’t say anything.
And that scares me. He’s pleading no contest tomorrow, Jimmy. Not guilty, but no contest.
So all they can go off is what your girl says. And if what she’s saying is not true, then God
help her. But if what she’s saying is true, then I want you to accept an apology on my
behalf. And I anticipate that this won’t affect the deal you set up between me and your
father. The elongated enrollment thing.

Jimmy- we play for the same team, you and me. I mean Rugby, yeah. But in life. We see life
as an ocean of options, we only want to take the ones that lead to happiness. I just want to
be happy, man.

There was a girl here earlier, Jimmy. She saw Leigh after the party and she--- Listen Jimmy
– I don’t date. I don’t plan to. I don’t have much about me that I enjoy. But being part of a
team... feeling like you belong. This is rare. You and your dad need to know that I am not
responsible and that I am not taking sides.

3. Marine Parade by Simon Stephens

ARCHIE:

Listen to me, Steve, this is massively important. There is a strand in the central nervous
system that means that unique in the animal world the human being can hold its hand in
the head of a flame and willingly choose to keep it there. Every other animal retracts. But
the human being has the physiological capacity to choose to override its instincts. And
because it has this capacity to choose, Steve, because it has the capacity to choose, then it
has an obligation to choose. It’s inexorable. It’s what civilizes us.

We choose how to live. We choose what to eat. We choose where to go. We choose what to
wear. We choose what to say. We choose who to love. And whether to tell them. And
what to do about it. We choose. And if you don’t choose, Steve, if you don’t choose, then
what you effectively do is you choose not to choose. You understand me?

It’s awfully, awfully, awfully, awfully sad. Some of us choose to spend all day staring out to
sea. Railing at the sky. Twittering on about the human race. Some of us choose to ignore
our husbands and ignore our wives and ignore our children and our families and our
friends as they totter along into these great gaping wounds. And some of us choose not to.

I just thought I’d share that with you.

It’s all bollocks, isn’t it?

MICHAEL:
I’ve been thinking about Emma all week.

Since I saw Paul. She’s been on my mind. I only just realized.

I’ve been thinking about her face when I told her I was leaving her. When I told her about
you.

I’m sitting in our living room with the children in bed waiting for her to come home. She’d
gone out somewhere and I’d decided for days that I was going to tell her when she got back
home that night.

She comes home.

She goes into the kitchen.

I can hear the words coming out of my mouth. As though they were coming from the
mouth of a complete stranger.

I think she had to carefully put something down.

I’m standing there watching her gather her thoughts. Her eyes were racing across her face.
I remember the clothes she’s wearing.

I made a terrible mistake.

I remember I had that feeling when I was waiting for her to come home. And I had it when
she came home. And I had it when I was speaking to her and I had it when I’d told her I was
leaving.

And it’s a feeling that’s not properly left me, I think. If I’m being completely honest with
myself, Alison. That it was a mistake. And that it was far too late to go back and change it.

All of the things that I wanted to fitted into a bag that she’s bought for me. She bought me a
bag for all the trips I was taking with work. Trips that I’d arrange to meet you on.

You were expecting me.

It was a mistake.

It was a mistake, Alison. I made a terrible mistake. I’ve actually been thinking that all
week. I only just realized.

4. Harper Regan by Simon Stephens.

MICKEY:
Do you know what fascinates me?

Surveillance.

Do you know how many people are watching your computer at any one given time?

Do you know how they do it?

They read the words that you type into your keyboard. I don’t mind. It doesn’t bother me.
The fraud’s a bit of a drag but, frankly, can you blame people? Wouldn’t you? You know
what I mean.

Pause.

I mean, I think people should just a bit more honest about it. They should go on radio
phone-ins and just fucking say, ‘I like porn! I look at it all the time! There’s nothing I like
more than watching images of twenty-year-old mid-western girls fucking older men.
Humping them until they come their heads off. That’s what I like that’s what I want to
spend my free time looking at.’ That’s the kind of country I wish I lived in.

Not Jeb Bush’s Florida.

No response.

Not fucking Israel.

No response.

I think I have worms.

No response.

Sometimes I think I prefer porn of actually having sex. Do you ever worry about that?

5. The Flick by Annie Baker

AVERY:

I almost quit my second day working here.

I just like… I couldn’t get out of bed. The first day was just like really awkward and I
couldn’t remember anything and I like… I had no idea how to hold the broom…

I’m serious. And then I woke up the next day and I just like freaked out. I was like: I can’t
have a job. I’m way too depressed. And I didn’t get out of bed and I like lay there under the
covers staring up at the ceiling and 4 pm rolled around, I like watched the numbers on my
alarm clock, and I was like, I should be at The Flick by now, but I couldn’t even bring myself
to call in sick. And then it was like 4:05, and then it was 4:10, and I was like that’s it. I just
lost my first job, I give up. And then—it’s weird—I didn’t even make the decision—but it
was like—the second I thought, like—I give up—my body started moving at I like pushed
the blanket off and like stood up and put on my uniform and like walked outside and
walked to the bus and took the bus and walked in here and made up some like lie to Sam
about why I was late and that was it.

Why am I depressed?

Um. Because everything is horrible? And sad?

(A short pause)

And the answer to every terrible situation always seems to be like, Be Yourself, but I have
no idea what that fucking means. Who’s Myself? Apparently there’s some like amazing
awesome person keep down inside of me or something? I have no idea who that guy is. I’m
always faking it. And it looks to me like everyone else is faking it too. Like everyone is
acting out some stereotype of like…exactly… who you’d think they be’d be. Everyone’s
acting like they’re on a sitcom or something. All the time. And I had one friend, one friend,
at Clark, this guy from Bangladesh who was really into sculpture, and then he transferred
to RISD and the end of freshman year.

AVERY:

EZEKIEL 25:17,
THE PATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS MAN IS BESET ON ALL SIDES BY THE INEQUITTIES OF
THE SELFISH AND THE TYRANNY OF EVIL MEN. BLESSED IS HE WHO, IN THE NAME OF
CHARITY AND GOOD WILL, SHEPHERDS THE WEAK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE
DARKNESS. FOR HE IS TRULY HIS BROTHER’S KEEPER AND THE FINDER OF LOST
CHILDREN. AND I WILL STRIKE DOWN WITH GREAT VENGEANCE AND FURIOUS ANGER
THOSE WHO ATTEMPT TO POISON AND DESTROY MY BROTHERS. AND YOU WILL KNOW
I AM THE LORD WHEN I LAY MY VENGEANCE UPON YOU.

(Pause. Avery speaks thoughtfully, sadly).

…I been sayin’ that shit for years.

And if you ever heard it, it meant your ass.

I never really questioned what I meant. I thought it was just some cold-blooded shit to say
to a motherfucker before you popped a cap in his ass.

But I saw some shit this morning and made me think twice.

(after a pause)
Now I’m thinking: it could mean you’re the evil man. And I’m the righteous man. And Mr. 9
millimeter here…he’s the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness.
Or it could be, you’re the righteous man and I’m the shepherd and it’s the world that’s evil
and selfish. I’d like that.

But that shit ain’t the truth.

The truth is, you’re the weak.

And I’m the tyranny of evil men.

But I’m tryin’, Ringo.

I’m tryin’ real hard to be the shepherd.

6. That Face by Polly Stenham

HENRY:

Stupid me.

You. You promised I would be the one to have got you to go. One thing. One thing for me.
So I could know that I helped you, so I could know it wasn’t a terrible mistake, all that
trying and crying and trying for you. And you wouldn’t. After one drink. After another
drink. And you wouldn’t. All night you wouldn’t. Of course you wouldn’t. Should have
known. Trapped us here so he could see how bad we’d got. News flash. He doesn’t fucking
care. I care. Setting a trap for your beautiful boy. Your beautiful baby. Well, how’s your
soldier boy now, Mummy? HOW’S YOUR SOLDIER BOY NOW?

7. reasons to be pretty by Neil LaBute

GREG:

How do you want me to act, Steph? Huh? I am trying to be nice here, to, to, to… make up
with you or kiss your ass, which is what I figured you were after – getting on my knees
practically to make it up to you but no – you’ve gotta keep pushing it, pushing me away by
saying that we’re done – what the hell is all that crap? You’re so angry… none of this makes
any sense! – and I just wanna go home. Ya know? Just go back to the house and climb into
bed with you, say “I’m sorry” again if you want me to, but crawl in and have you up against
me… your back against me and I can feel your heartbeat when we get all quiet like that…
that’s what I want.