Are you funny? Like a clown? Do you amuse me? Are you here for my entertainment?\u00a0Let’s face it, being funny is one of the most deceptively hard things to do on command.\u00a0There is a science to comedy. It’s mathematical, its calculated, it requires precision and pinpoint timing.\u00a0Farts are also funny.But in the case you find yourself too bashful to break wind in the audition room. Here is a list of comedic monologues for boys to practice on.<\/p>\n
1. Tartuffe By Moliere<\/strong><\/p>\n TARTUFFE:<\/strong> A love of heavenly beauty does not preclude 2. Fat Pig By Neil Lubute<\/strong><\/p>\n TOM: <\/strong>I\u2019m weak. That\u2019s what I basically learned from our time together. I am a weak person, 3. The Importance of Being Earnest By Oscar Wilde<\/strong><\/p>\n ALGERNON:<\/strong> I haven’t the smallest intention of dining with Aunt Augusta. To begin with, I dined thereon Monday, and once a week is quite enough to dine with one’s own relations. In thesecond place, whenever I do dine there I am always treated as a member of the family,and sent down with either no woman at all, or two. In the third place, I know perfectlywell whom she will place me next to, to-night. She will place me next Mary Farquhar,who always flirts with her own husband across the dinner-table. That is not very pleasant. Indeed, it is not even decent . . . and that sort of thing is enormously on the increase. The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one’s clean linen in public.<\/p>\n 4. The Cherry Orchard BY Anton Chekov<\/strong><\/p>\n TROFIMOV: <\/strong>All Russia is our orchard. The land is great and beautiful, there are many marvellous places in it. (Pause) Think, Anya, your grandfather, your great-grandfather, and all your ancestors were serf-owners, they owned living souls; and now, doesn’t something human look at you from every cherry in the orchard, every leaf and every stalk? Don’t you hear voices…? Oh, it’s awful, your orchard is terrible; and when in the evening or at night you walk through the orchard, then the old bark on the trees sheds a dim light and the old cherry-trees seem to be dreaming of all that was a hundred, two hundred years ago, and are oppressed by their heavy visions. Still, at any rate, we’ve left those two hundred years behind us. So far we’ve gained nothing at all\u2014we don’t yet know what the past is to be to us\u2014we only philosophize, we complain that we are dull, or we drink vodka. For it’s so clear that in order to begin to live in the present we must first redeem the past, and that can only be done by suffering, by strenuous, uninterrupted labour. Understand that, Anya.<\/p>\n 5. The Book of Mormon by Matt Stone, Robert Lopez, and Trey Parker<\/strong><\/p>\n ELDER PRICE:<\/strong> Well, well\u2026 If it isn\u2019t the SUPER MORMON. Spreading \u201cthe word\u201d?! Making more \u2013 BRAIN WASHED ZOMBIES?! How is it YOU converted all those people into Mormons! You get everything you pray for. YOU\u2019RE doing everything I was supposed to do. Doesn\u2019t that seem a little telling to you?! The universe doesn\u2019t work the way we were told! When I was nine years old\u2026 My family took a trip to Orlando, Florida. It was the most wonderful, most magical place I had ever seen. I said to myself \u201cTHIS is where I want to spend eternity!\u201d My parents told me that if I made God proud, and did whatever the church asked, in the Latter Days I could have whatever I wanted. So I WORKED and I WORKED. And even when I studied Mormon stories and I thought, \u2018That doesn\u2019t make ANY SENSE\u2019, I KEPT WORKING because I was told ONE DAY \u2014 I would get my reward!! Planet Orlando! But what do I have now? I can\u2019t even get a ticket home\u2026<\/p>\n 6. THE RETURN BY Reg Cribb <\/strong><\/p>\n STEVE:<\/strong> No, no, no\u2026 ya can\u2019t turn back now. I\u2019m startin\u2019 to see you as the voice of a very misunderstood section\u00a0of our society. But you know\u2026 there\u2019s a million of me getting\u2019 round, mate. And they\u2019ll all tell ya they had a\u00a0tough life. You know, beaten up by their dad, in trouble with the cops, pisshead mum, rough school. A million\u00a0fuckin\u2019 excuses why they turned out to be bad eggs.<\/p>\n And I got all of the above\u2026 Oh yeah! Truth is, most of \u2015em are just bored. They leave their shit-ass state\u00a0school and live on the dole in their diddly bumfuck nowhere suburb. Before ya know it, ya got some girl up the\u00a0duff and no money. She spends the day with a screamin\u2019 sprog and a fag in her mouth plonked in front of a\u00a0daytime soap wearin her tracky daks all day, dreamin\u2019 of bein\u2019 swept away by some Fabio and she just gets\u2026\u00a0fatter. But\u2026 her Centrelink payments have gone up and all her fat friends are waitin\u2019 in line behind her!<\/p>\n It\u2019s a career move for \u2015em. Gettin up the duff. And you\u2026 drink with ya mates, watch the footy and the\u00a0highlight of the week is the local tavern has a skimpy barmaid every Friday. And ya know the rest of the world\u00a0is havin a better time. Ya just know it. The magazines are tellin\u2019 ya that, the newspapers, the telly.<\/p>\n Everybody\u2019s richer, everybody\u2019s more beautiful, and everybody\u2019s got more\u2026 purpose. And ya thinkin\u2019, how do\u00a0I make sense of this dog-ass life? And then one day ya just get hold of a gun. Ya don\u2019t even know what ya\u00a0gonna do with it. It\u2019s like the sound of a V8 in the distance. It takes ya\u2026 somewhere else. [Pause.] I didn\u2019t see\u00a0ya writin\u2019 any of this down. I\u2019m spillin\u2019 my guts out in the name of art and you don\u2019t give a shit. What sort of\u00a0writer are ya?<\/p>\n 7. SECRET BRIDESMAIDS BUSINESS BY Elizabeth Coleman <\/strong><\/p>\n JAMES:<\/strong> Look, sex and love are separate things\u2026Well, they can be, that\u2019s all I\u2019m saying. This thing with Naomi-\u00a0okay, it should never have happened-but it didn\u2019t have to impact on what I have with Meg. I thought that was\u00a0the deal. It was a separate arrangement. She told me she just wanted a bit of fun, and now she turns around\u00a0and does this\u2026! I mean, where the hell did that come from? If I\u2019d known Naomi felt like that I would\u2019ve broken\u00a0it off with her months ago. Well maybe. Oh shit, maybe not. But I just-I just wish women would say what they\u00a0mean. You know-plainly, clearly state what they want instead of expecting you to be psychic. Meg bought me\u00a0this T-shirt at the Warner Brothers store, and it\u2019s got a picture of Superman on it. He\u2019s wearing this perplexed\u00a0expression and he\u2019s saying You want me to leap tall buildings and be sensitive and supportive?! That\u2019s how it is\u00a0with women. They want you to slay a dragon for them one second, then cry at a guide dog commercial the\u00a0next.<\/p>\n And somehow you\u2019re expected to guess when they want you to be controlling and when they want you to be\u00a0crying-and if you don\u2019t make the right guess at the right time it\u2019s instantly construed as proof that you don\u2019t\u00a0love them enough. If you really loved me you wouldn\u2019t need to ask. How many times have I heard that? Well\u00a0I\u2019m sorry, I\u2019ve loved a few people a lot, but no-one\u2019s ever stepped out of the shadows and handed me a crystal\u00a0ball. Anyway, I know I\u2019m trying to change the subject. The fact is, I\u2019ve been acting like a prick.<\/p>\n 8. COSI By Louis Nowra<\/strong><\/p>\n DOUG:<\/strong> It was the fault of the psychiatrist. I\u2019d been seeing him because of my pyromania-that\u2019s a person who\u00a0likes lighting fires-but you probably know that being University educated. You know the problem with\u00a0pyromania? It\u2019s the only crime where you have to be at the scene of it to make it a perfect crime, to give\u00a0yourself satisfaction. \u201cCourse, that means the chances of you getting caught are greater, especially if you\u2019re\u00a0standing in front of the fire, face full of ecstasy and with a gigantic hard on. So, the cops got me and I\u2019m sent to\u00a0the shrink. He tells me that I\u2019ve got an unresolved problem with my mother. I think, hello, he\u2019s not going to tell\u00a0me to do something Oedipal, like fuck her or something\u2026but that wasn\u2019t the problem. My ego had taken a\u00a0severe battering from her. He said I had better resolve it, stop treating her like I was still a child. It made some\u00a0sort of cosmic sense. I had to stand up to her. So I thought about it and realized that I had to treat it like a\u00a0boxing match, get the first punch in, so to speak, to give me the upper hand in our relationship. She had five\u00a0cats.<\/p>\n One night I rounded them up, put them in a cage, doused them with petrol and put a match to them. Well,\u00a0boy, oh, boy, what a racket! They were running around the backyard burning and howling-there\u2019s no such\u00a0thing as grace under pressure for a burning cat, let me tell you. I hid in the shrubs when Mum came outside to\u00a0see what was happening. Totally freaked out, she did. Five of them, running around the backyard like mobile\u00a0bonfires. I figured I\u2019d wait a couple of hours till the cats were dead and mum was feeling a bit sorry for herself\u00a0and I\u2019d knock on the front door and say to her \u2018Hi, mum, I\u2019ve come to talk about our unresolved conflicts\u2019 but,\u00a0oh, no, one of those cats ran into the house. In a couple of minutes the whole bloody house was alight and\u00a0within half an hour there was no bloody front door to knock on. (a beat) If it wasn\u2019t for that damn cat, I\u00a0wouldn\u2019t be here.<\/p>\n 9. THE VORTEX BY Noel Coward <\/strong><\/p>\n NICKY: <\/strong>Look at me. You’ve given me nothing my whole life. Nothing that counts. You forget what I’ve seen\u00a0tonight Mother. I’ve seen you make a vulgar disgusting scene in your own house, and on top of that, humiliate\u00a0yourself before a boy half your age. The misery of losing Bunty faded away when that happened. Everything is\u00a0comparative after all. You ran after him up the stairs because your vanity wouldn’t let you lose him. It isn’t that\u00a0you love him, no, that would be easier – you only love them loving you. All your so-called passion and\u00a0temperament is false. Your whole existence has degenerated into an endless empty craving for admiration and\u00a0flattery, and you say you’ve done no harm to anybody? Father used to be a clever man, with a strong will and a\u00a0capacity for enjoying almost anything, but now, he’s nothing. A complete non- entity because his spirit has\u00a0been crushed. How could it be otherwise? You’ve let him down consistently for years! And God knows I’m\u00a0nothing for him to look forward to. But I might have been if it hadn’t been for you! You’re not happy. You’re\u00a0never happy. You’re fighting all the time to keep your youth and your looks, as though they mattered in the\u00a0end. You’re not young or beautiful. I’m seeing for the first time just how old you are. It’s horrible. With your\u00a0silly fair hair and your face all plastered and painted. Mother! Mother, sit up! Now then, you’re not going to\u00a0have any more lovers. You’re not going to be beautiful or successful ever again. You’re going to be my mother\u00a0for once. It’s about time I had one before I go over the edge altogether. I love you really…that’s why it’s so\u00a0awful.<\/p>\n 10. THE DAYS & NIGHTS OF BEEBEE FENSTERMAKER By: William Snyder <\/strong><\/p>\n BOB:<\/strong> My name is Bob Smith, care of Claude and Esther Berry Smith, Box 231, Hughes, Arkansas. I’m twenty-five years old and I have an\u00a0eighth grade education. My daddy run me clean out of town. Bought me a one way ticket on a Trailways Bus. Told me he’d buy me a\u00a0one way ticket to anyplace in the U.S.A. Even rode with me as far as Le-Hi. (Pronounced Lee-High) to make sure I didn’t pull a fast\u00a0one and slip back after sundown. He said Hughes wasn’t big enough for the both of us. Hughes is tee-ninecy all right. But I didn’t think it\u00a0was that small. Last I seen of my Daddy was when the bus puled into Le-Hi. he got off the bus and bought me a Dr. Pepper and this\u00a0comic book. (pulls a comic book from hip pocket) He said, “Well, so long, Bob. I’ll see you in the funny papers.” Before I could even\u00a0say anything he skipped across the highway and was thumbin a ride back to Hughes. That was the last I seen of my daddy. The very last\u00a0I seen of him before he took off for Hughes. I bet he was back there before supper. I know he’s back there by now.<\/p>\n (Pleasantly,\u00a0He\u00a0looks at the kitchen table) I wonder what Momma and Daddy had for supper? Fried chicken most likely. I sure do love friend chicken.<\/p>\n I sure do miss Hughes. I never been no further than Blackfish Lake cept the time Momma and Daddy took me up to hear Reverend\u00a0Moore Preach a revival at Proctor. Momma’s a bug on religion, but old Reverend Moore’s one somebody sure igged her. Reverend\u00a0Moores the shoutin foot stompin kind of religion, and Momma’s is the toe the line, hoe the row kind. They don’t even sing in Momma’s\u00a0church. It was started up right there in Hughes by Reverend Bitsie Trotter. He does odd jobs with a pick-up truck during the week. Folks\u00a0said the reason he didn’t allow singing was cause he couldn’t carry a tune.<\/p>\n\n\n
A proper love for earthly pulchritude;
Our senses are quite rightly captivated
By perfect works our Maker has created.
Some glory clings to all that Heaven has made;
In you, all Heaven\u2019s marvels are displayed.
On that fair face, such beauties have been lavished,
The eyes are dazzled and the heart is ravished;
How could I look on you, O flawless creature,
And not adore the Author of all Nature,
Feeling a love both passionate and pure
For you, his triumph of self-portraiture?
At first, I trembled lest that love should be
A subtle snare that Hell had laid for me;
I vowed to flee the sight of you, eschewing
A rapture that might prove my soul\u2019s undoing;
But soon, fair being, I became aware
That my deep passion could be made to square
With rectitude, and with my bounden duty.
I thereupon surrendered to your beauty.
It is, I know, presumptuous on my part
To bring you this poor offering of my heart,
And it is not my merit, Heaven knows,
But your compassion on which my hopes repose.
You are my peace, my solace, my salvation;
On you depends my bliss \u2013 or desolation;
I bide your judgment and, as you think best,
I shall be either miserable or blest.<\/p>\n
and I don\u2019t know if I can overcome that. No, maybe I do know. Yeah. I do know that I
am, and I can\u2019t\u2026 overcome it, I mean. I think you are an amazing woman, I honestly do.
And I really love what we\u2019ve had here. Our time together\u2026 But I think that we\u2019re very
different people. Not just who we are- jobs or that kind of thing- but it does play into it
as well. Factors in. We probably should\u2019ve realized this earlier, but I\u2019ve been so happy
being near you that I just sorta overlooked it and went on. I did. But I feel it coming up
now, more and more, and I just think- No, that\u2019s bullshit, actually, the whole work thing.<\/p>\n