I need to prepare a monologue from Shakespeare..........

[Darth_Kitten]

Not Hamlet or MacBeth.....and I'm a woman.


Any suggestions?

[Bossy Monkey]

1. I'm stumped, but these guys seem to have some ideas

http://www.shakespeare-monologues.org/womenindex.shtml

[Darth_Kitten]

5. I think I was today......

I want to do something the others won't be doing.... :) hmmmm....choices.

[Aristus]

2. Portia's speech to Brutus in "Julius Caesar" is a good one. My wife does a terrific rendition.

Give it a try...

[Darth_Kitten]

6. Your wife is an actress?

:)

[LostinVA]

3. Portia,"The quality of mercy" (Merchant of Venice) -- hands down

[ok_cpu]

4. +1

:applause:

This site may help: http://www.shakespeare-monologues.org/womenindex.shtml

[ashling]

7. Midsummer Night's Dream - Helena

Romeo and Juliet - Juliet

Merchant of Venice - Portia

[sarge43]

8. Emilia's "If wives do fall" Othello IV iii

Amazingly liberated given time, place and author's gender.

"Yes, a dozen; and as many to th' vantage as would store the world they play'd for.
But I do think it is their husbands' faults
If wives do fall. Say that they slack their duties,
And pour our treasures into foreign laps; .....

[blogslut]

9. Do Hamlette anyway

his speech is the greatest EVAR:

To be or not to be, that is the question;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them. To die--to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to — 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life,
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch<1> and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action...

[dancing kali]

10. Depends on what the monologue is for.

If it is for a casting audition... you would be better to avoid the "purple" monologues. This means that you should not do Juliet, Portia (Merchant of Venice - specifically the Quality of Mercy), Viola (Twelfth Night), Midsummer Night's Dream - Helena (She is one of this confedracy...) or Titania (either the Jealous Oberon or The fairy land buys not the child...) Katherine (Taming of the Shrew - specifically the Fie, fie...) or Phoebe (As You Like It - Think not I love him...). Everybody does them. Unless you have a completely brilliant different take on the character/speech... the audition panel will have seen endless versions of these monologues over and over again. If you do something different they will remember you because you are part of a smaller subset of monologues (say a group of 5 rather than a group of 50). Look at Isabella (Measure for Measure), Paulina or Hermione (Winter's Tale), Emilia (Othello), the Courtesan (Comedy of Errors), or Portia (Julius Caesar). You could also consider Lear's Fool or Caliban as a non gender specific character rather than doing Ariel or Puck. I use Chorus (Henry V) but only for voiceover auditions on tape because it shows off my voice nicely. Anyway in this case you want to make them stop playing with their pencils and coffee cups and pay attention to you. Keeping their attention is up to you as an actor; so choose wisely and make sure you know what you are saying.

If the monologue is for an acting programme/school audition, you could get away with doing Juliet, Viola, etc. They are looking to see if you are trainable and what you can do. So whatever monologue you feel the most connected to is the one to go with.

If the monologue is for an acting class... anything goes. If your "type" is the strong female characters (Paulina, Portia, Emilia), you might want to choose Juliet, Miranda, or either Hermia or Helena, since acting class is a place to explore characters and what you can do as an actor and get fairly instantaneous constructive feedback from the instructor and fellow students.

When you can use a monologue from the Scottish Play - try the Hecate monologue. It's usually cut from performances so it's rarely seen. I use this one as part of my audition repertoire.

Sorry, didn't mean to go off on a lecture there. Hope this helps.