The Methuen Drama Book of Modern Monologues for Men

Teens to Thirties

Dee Cannon

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781350275461
• eBook ISBN: 9781783199389
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Monologues are an essential part of every actor's toolkit. Actors need them for drama school entry, training, showcases and when auditioning for roles in the industry. Edited by Dee Cannon, author of the bestselling In-Depth Acting, this book showcases selected monologues from some of the finest modern plays by some of today's leading contemporary playwrights. The monologues contain a diverse range of quirky and memorable characters that cross cultural and historical boundaries, and comes in a brand new format, with a notes page next to each speech, acting as an actor's workbook as well as a monologue resource.

BOTTLENECK

by Luke Barnes

Bottleneck premiered as part of the 2012 Edinburgh Festival. The production transferred to Soho Theatre London and then toured theatres across the UK. A revival production of the play took place at Edinburgh Festival in July 2014.

The play is set in Liverpool, 1989, and features only one character, Greg, who is thirteen. He has just started secondary school. He earns pocket money sweeping up hair in a barber’s. Girls are aliens. Liverpool FC are everything. It’s written in quite a strong Liverpudlian dialect which can be modified if need be.

In this first piece Greg is mouthing off about his Dad, primarily because Greg has just been given free tickets to see his beloved Liverpool team but as his father believes he shouldn’t get anything for nothing, he takes him down to his friend’s barber shop to earn some money. Greg has a laugh at his father’s expense on his first day.

GREG – 13 (LIVERPOOL)

My Dad’s a hypocrite because he’s not looking after me when he goes out is he? Does that mean I don’t matter? Don’t care anyway. I’m not going to wash tonight. I’m going to bed. Just because he thinks I should doesn’t mean it’s true.

He’s got all moral since mum left. He says ‘when we die, she’ll be in hell so I’m doing everything possible to get into heaven.’

When I get in from school he’s got it all sorted. He’s got me a job in ’is mate’s barber’s and he marches me around holding my hand. It’s gay.

We get there and it’s this big bald guy with loads of magazines with tits in everywhere and he keeps me there for 4 hours. 4 hours ’e keeps iz ’airdressers open til ten. 4 hours! I sweep up ’air. Ginger hair, black hair, grey hair, beard hair, muzzie hair you name it and I sweep it up. It’s disgusting. ’e goes the toilet do you know I do? I pick up this big bit of black ’air, like mine, and I get some glue … and I … glue … the hair to my face, like this, to make it look like a muzzie and go ‘Look mister

I look like me Dad don’t I. Then I take Dad’s mate’s aviators and run around shooting people that walk past going ‘I AM JOHN MCCLANE I AM JOHN MCCLANE, LOOK AT ME YIPPEE KI YAY MOTHER FUCKER.’ Next thing I know I’m outside and it’s cold. I’m not allowed back. BUT I’ve got 3 quid. Which means I’m 3 quid closer to my 14.50 for the footy tickets.

Can’t believe I have to pay for the tickets.

BOTTLENECK

by Luke Barnes

Bottleneck premiered as part of the 2012 Edinburgh Festival. The production transferred to Soho Theatre London and then toured theatres across the UK. A revival production of the play took place at Edinburgh Festival in July 2014.

The play is set in Liverpool, 1989, and features only one character, Greg, who is thirteen. He has just started secondary school. He earns pocket money sweeping up hair in a barber’s. Girls are aliens. Liverpool FC are everything. It’s written in quite a strong Liverpudlian dialect which can be modified if need be.

Greg and his new best mate Tom are walking home and his friend decides to suddenly hurl a rock through a police car’s window. They both run off but one of the policemen catches up with Greg and drives him back home to explain himself in front of his dad.

GREG – 13 (LIVERPOOL)

So I’m sitting in the back of this car and it stinks of piss. I ask the fella ‘Hey mate, why does it smell of piss in the back of your pussy wagon?’ and ’e goes ‘firstly it’s not a pussy wagon, it’s a police car and secondly a homeless lady pissed herself there this morning, haven’t had time to wash it yet’… ‘wa? So I’m sitting on homeless lady piss?’ ‘should have thought about that before you started being a smart arse shouldn’t ya’. Fucking hell. If I’d known that I would just bought a pasty and gone ’ome … Fuck Tom for getting away. I didn’t even do anything.

As we drive past everyone’s drawing the curtains. It’s dead quite. Like dead quite. And we pull up to ours and I can see Dad in the window. Looking. Fuck. ’E looks dead grey. Dead solemn. I get out, am not handcuffed or anything … I could run away … Should I? The bussie looks at me, ’e knows. I make my mind up not to, probably better. And they knock on the door. And Dad answers.

And I go in to the sitting room and sit in silence. I don’t hear the rest of the conversation. I take it Dad doesn’t like this policeman.

’E turns and ’is face is red. He takes his belt off and for a second I think he’s going to do what Tom’s Dad did to him and show me his cock. But he doesn’t. He takes off his belt and he twats me with it. Not on my arse like last time but everywhere. All over me body. All over me face. Me arms. Me legs. And it fucking hurts. It’s like he’s had all this rage bottled up in him about mum and Collin and all these things and they’ve just boiled up inside him and he’s let it all out. All over me. And it hurts. Fuck you Dad. He opens his cabinet, takes something in a bag out and goes up to his room locking it behind him. I stand there. Can feel the rage bubbling up inside me, all that work for nothing. I’m fucked off. I fucking hate my Dad. I didn’t even throw the fucking rock. I feel so fucking angry.

THE KEEPERS OF INFINITE SPACE

by Omar El-Khairy

The Keepers of Infinite Space had its world premiere at Park Theatre in January 2014.

A play about a Palestinian prisoner in an Israeli jail. It explores the dynamics of the Israeli prison system revealing the painful complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Shadi is a sixteen-year-old Palestinian prisoner. Tom works for the British International Committee of the Red Cross as an aid worker. He is trying to convince Shadi to record his testimony upon arrest.

SHADI – 16 (PALESTINIAN)

(Beat.) I hung in the air – blood dripping from my body. My shirt covered in blood. My whole body shaking. I remember feeling numb – from the shrapnel that hit me in the thigh.

We were at this demonstration. My brother, Abed – he was – was standing right next to me. I’d told him not to come, but he wouldn’t listen.

He was hit straight in the head with a tear-gas canister.

‘There is no change nor strength except through Allah, to Allah we belong, and to Him we will return.’

That’s all I remember him saying – my father.

Pause.

It was sometime in the morning – three – four, maybe. I heard this loud bang – then the sudden stench of gas. There was a flood of soldiers into the house. My mother began shouting, and then I felt someone grab me and rip me out of bed. The soldiers took me outside – to their jeep. My mother followed them – lashing out and screaming. (Beat.) But my father – he just stood there – in the doorway. Silent.

That’s the last time I saw them.

Pause.

I was undressed and left standing in my underwear. They dragged me for interrogation. They beat me. They beat you hard in those first few days because they know no one’s going to see you – or the bruises. And this carried on for days.

I don’t really know how long. Question after question. I was real hungry – starving. I told them, but they just said I could eat once I’d confessed.

They put me in this room. It kept going from hot to cold – freezing to boiling. I don’t know how they did it. Then, after a few hours, I started to feel my heart beating faster and faster. I shouted for them to let me out. Nothing. I thought my heart was going to explode at any moment.

A few days later they showed me this video of children throwing stones at soldiers – and – (Beat.) And I admitted – that I was one of them. One of the kids in the video.

It wasn’t me though – in the video.

I just had to – you know.

Pause.

(Beat.) And what are you going to do with that testimony, Tom? (Beat.) Give it to your superiors?

(Beat.) And what do you think they’re going to do with it?

(Beat.) You’re just wasting your time, my friend.

SOME PEOPLE TALK ABOUT VIOLENCE

by Lulu Raczka and Barrel Organ

Some People Talk About Violence was first presented by Barrel Organ at Summerhall at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2015 and subsequently transferred to Camden People’s Theatre.

The play deals with a girl suffering from acute depression. She recently lost yet another job and now rarely leaves her home; instead she obsesses over the TV show The Big Bang Theory. We learn very early on in the play that she’s done something that has led to her arrest. The story unfolds through a narrator, her mother and brother. When his sister phones him from prison, her brother immediately returns from Thail...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Men Teens
• 1. BOTTLENECK – BY LUKE BARNES
• 2. BOTTLENECK – BY LUKE BARNES
• 3. THE KEEPERS OF INFINITE SPACE – BY OMAR EL-KHAIRY
• 4. SOME PEOPLE TALK ABOUT VIOLENCE – BY LULU RACZKA AND BARREL ORGAN
• 5. CHALK FARM – BY KIERAN HURLEY AND AJ TAUDEVIN
• 6. CHALK FARM – BY KIERAN HURLEY AND AJ TAUDEVIN
• 7. VIOLENCE AND SON – BY GARY OWEN
• 8. WHOLE – BY PHILIP OSMENT
• 9. SOLOMON AND MARION – BY LARA FOOT NEWTON
• 10. DECKY DOES A BRONCO – BY DOUGLAS MAXWELL
• 11. TOO FAST – BY DOUGLAS MAXWELL
• 12. VELOCITY – BY DANIEL MACDONALD
• 13. FEAR OF MUSIC (IN WHAT YOU WISH FOR IN YOUTH) – BY BARNEY NORRIS
• 14. WISE GUYS – BY PHILIP OSMENT
• 15. THE SAINTS – BY LUKE BARNES
• Men 20’s
• 1. LUNGS – BY DUNCAN MACMILLAN
• 2. LUNGS – BY DUNCAN MACMILLAN
• 3. CARTHAGE – BY CHRIS THOMPSON
• 4. PINEAPPLE – BY PHILLIP MCMAHON
• 5. PINEAPPLE – BY PHILLIP MCMAHON
• 6. PERFECT MATCH – BY GARY OWEN
• 7. INNOCENCE – BY DEA LOHER
• 8. EVENTIDE – BY BARNEY NORRIS
• 9. OPERATION CRUCIBLE – BY KIERAN KNOWLES
• 10. CHAPEL STREET – BY LUKE BARNES
• 11. CHAPEL STREET – BY LUKE BARNES
• 12. CHAPEL STREET – BY LUKE BARNES
• 13. RED – BY JOHN LOGAN
• 14. THE WELL AND BADLY LOVED – BY BEN WEBB
• 15. THE WELL AND BADLY LOVED – BY BEN WEBB
• Men 30’s
• 1. THE BODY OF AN AMERICAN – BY DAN O’BRIEN
• 2. THE BODY OF AN AMERICAN – BY DAN O’BRIEN
• 3. THE BODY OF AN AMERICAN – BY DAN O’BRIEN
• 4. LITTLE LIGHT – BY ALICE BIRCH
• 5. LITTLE LIGHT – BY ALICE BIRCH
• 6. GNIT – BY WILL ENO
• 7. CADRE – BY OMPHILE MOLUSI
• 8. PETER AND ALICE – BY JOHN LOGAN
• 9. MOSCOW STATIONS – BY VENEDIKT EROFEEV
• 10. PASTORAL – BY THOMAS ECCLESHARE
• 11. KHANDAN – BY GURPREET KAUR BHATTI
• 12. ZHE – BY CHUCK MIKE, ANTONIA KEMI COKER AND TONDERAI MUNYEVU
• 13. ZHE – BY CHUCK MIKE, ANTONIA KEMI COKER AND TONDERAI MUNYEVU
• 14. THE BARDS OF BROMLEY AND OTHER PLAYS – BY PERRY PONTAC
• 15. THE DEAD WAIT – BY PAUL HERZBERG