(hold the room.)
Dramatic monologues for women, under two minutes
A dramatic piece that lands inside two minutes is harder to find than a long one. These do. Sorted by how well they read on their own, not by fame.
- 1
Louka from Arms and the Man
George Bernard Shaw · play · dramatic · 1:42 min
How easy it is to talk! Men never seem to me to grow up: they all have schoolboy's ideas. You don't know what true courage is. Look at me! how much am I allowed to have my own…
- 2
Helena from All's Well That Ends Well
William Shakespeare · play · dramatic · 0:58 min
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky Gives us free scope; only doth backward pull Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull. What…
- 3
Juliet Capulet from Romeo and Juliet
William Shakespeare · play · dramatic · 1:36 min
Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face; Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night. Fain would I dwell on form -- fain, fain…
- 4
Anna Christie (nee Christopherson) from Anna Christie
Eugene O'Neill · play · dramatic · 1:21 min
You can go to hell, both of you! You're just like all the rest of them—you two! Gawd, you'd think I was a piece of furniture! I'll show you! Sit down now! Sit down and let me talk…
- 5
Michelle from 12
Nikita Mikhalkov · film · dramatic · 0:56 min
- 6
Nora Helmer from A Doll's House
Henrik Ibsen · play · dramatic · 1:02 min
But you neither think nor talk like the man I could bind myself to. As soon as your fear was over--and it was not fear for what threatened me, but for what might happen to…
- 7
Anna Christie (nee Christopherson) from Anna Christie
Eugene O'Neill · play · dramatic · 1:15 min
Not on your life, it wasn't. It was true for two years. I didn't go wrong all at one jump. Being a nurse girl was yust what finished me. Taking care of other people's kids, always…
- 8
Beatrice from The Changeling
Peter Medak · film · dramatic · 1:00 min
- 9
Helena from All's Well That Ends Well
William Shakespeare · play · dramatic · 1:54 min
O, were that all! I think not on my father; And these great tears grace his remembrance more Than those I shed for him. What was he like? I have forgot him: my imagination Carries…
- 10
Nora Helmer from A Doll's House
Henrik Ibsen · play · dramatic · 1:46 min
Yes--someday, perhaps, after many years, when I am no longer as nice-looking as I am now. Don't laugh at me! I mean, of course, when Torvald is no longer as devoted to me as he is…
- 11
Eleanor of Aquitaine from The Lion in Winter
Anthony Harvey · film · dramatic · 0:46 min
- 12
Anna Christie (nee Christopherson) from Anna Christie
Eugene O'Neill · play · dramatic · 1:43 min
I s’pose if I tried to tell you I wasn’t--that--no more you’d believe me, wouldn’t you? Yes, you would! And if I told you that yust getting out in this barge, and being on the sea…
- 13
Katherine from The Taming of the Shrew
William Shakespeare · play · dramatic · 0:43 min
No Shame but mine: I must, forsooth, be forced To give my hand opposed against my heart Unto a mad-brain rudesby full of spleen; Who woo’d in haste and means to wed at leisure. I…
- 14
Cordelia from King Lear
William Shakespeare · play · dramatic · 0:53 min
Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty According to my bond; no more nor less. Good my lord, You have begot me, bred me, lov'd me; I Return…
- 15
Ellie Dunn from Heartbreak House
George Bernard Shaw · play · dramatic · 1:28 min
Oh, don’t slop and gush and be sentimental. Don’t you see that unless I can be hard -- hard as nails -- I shall go mad? I don’t care a damn about your calling me names: do you…
- 16
Sonya from Uncle Vanya
Anton Chekhov · play · dramatic · 1:59 min
What can we do? We must live our lives. Yes, we shall live, Uncle Vanya. We shall live through the long procession of days before us, and through the long evenings; we shall…
- 17
Cleopatra from Antony and Cleopatra
William Shakespeare · play · dramatic · 0:43 min
Sir, I will eat no meat, I'll not drink, sir; If idle talk will once be necessary, I'll not sleep neither: this mortal house I'll ruin, Do Caesar what he can. Know, sir, that I…
- 18
Jane Eyre from Jane Eyre
Cary Joji Fukunaga · film · dramatic · 0:44 min
- 19
Miranda from The Tempest
William Shakespeare · play · dramatic · 0:44 min
If by your art, my dearest father, you have Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them. The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch, But that the sea, mounting to the…
- 20
Lady Macbeth from Macbeth
William Shakespeare · play · dramatic · 1:47 min
Was the hope drunk Wherein you dress'd yourself? Hath it slept since? And wakes it now, to look so green and pale At what it did so freely? From this time Such I account thy love.…
- 21
Desdemona from Othello
William Shakespeare · play · dramatic · 0:54 min
O good Iago, What shall I do to win my lord again? Good friend, go to him; for, by this light of heaven, I know not how I lost him. Here I kneel: If e'er my will did trespass…
- 22
Larita from Easy Virtue
Noël Coward · play · dramatic · 1:45 min
I'm completely out- side the bounds of your understanding — in every way. And yet I know you, Marion, through and through — far better than you know yourself. You're a pitiful…
- 23
Phoebe Throssel from Quality Street
Sir James Matthew (J.M.) Barrie · play · dramatic · 1:50 min
No, Susan, no. I did love him all those years, though I never spoke of it to you. I put hope aside at once, I folded it up and kissed it and put it away like a pretty garment I…
- 24
Irina Sergeyevna Prozorov from Three Sisters
Anton Chekhov · play · dramatic · 1:14 min
When I woke up to-day and got up and dressed myself, I suddenly began to feel as if everything in this life was open to me, and that I knew how I must live. Dear Ivan Romanovitch,…
- 25
Lady Macbeth from Macbeth
William Shakespeare · play · dramatic · 0:45 min
Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood; Stop up the access and…
- 26
Juliet Capulet from Romeo and Juliet
William Shakespeare · play · dramatic · 0:54 min
The clock struck nine when I did send the nurse; In half an hour she promised to return. Perchance she cannot meet him: that’s not so. O, she is lame! love’s heralds should be…
- 27
Mrs. Robinson from The Graduate
Mike Nichols · film · dramatic · 0:59 min
- 28
Marina from Pericles, Prince of Tyre
William Shakespeare · play · dramatic · 1:14 min
Start: Neither of these are so bad as thou art, Since they do better thee in their command. Thou hold'st a place, for which the pained'st fiend Of hell would not in reputation…
- 29
Lady Anne from Richard III
William Shakespeare · play · dramatic · 1:42 min
Set down, set down your honourable load, If honour may be shrouded in a hearse, Whilst I awhile obsequiously lament The untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster. Poor key-cold figure…
- 30
The Duchess from The Duchess of Malfi
John Webster · play · dramatic · 1:08 min
The misery of us that are born great, We are forced to woo because none dare woo us: And as a tyrant doubles with his words, And fearfully equivocates, so we Are forced to express…
Length is estimated at a spoken pace of about 150 words a minute. Public-domain pieces are printed in full on their own page; copyrighted ones list the character and the source.
Related: comedic monologues for women under 2 minutes · contemporary dramatic monologues for women · classical monologues for women
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