Monologue

Hypatia Monologue from Misalliance

From Misalliance by Bernard Shaw

female · defiant · 1:40 min

Just so: how clever of you! I want to be; I want to do; and I'm game to suffer if it costs that. But stick here doing nothing but being good and nice and ladylike I simply wont. Stay down here with us for a week; and I'll shew you what it means: shew it to you going on day after day, year after year, lifetime after lifetime. (LORD SUMMERHAYS: Shew me what?) Girls withering into ladies. Ladies withering into old maids. Nursing old women. Running errands for old men. Good for nothing else at last. Oh, you cant imagine the fiendish selfishness of the old people and the maudlin sacrifice of the young. It's more unbearable than any poverty: more horrible than any regular-right-down wickedness. Oh, home! home! parents! family! duty! how I loathe them! How I'd like to see them all blown to bits! The poor escape. The wicked escape. Well, I cant be poor: we're rolling in money: it's no use pretending we're not. But I can be wicked; and I'm quite prepared to be. (LORD SUMMERHAYS: You think that easy?) Well, isnt it? Being a man, you ought to know.

Rehearse Hypatia's monologue

Run it out loud with a spotlight that follows your voice, line by line, until it's off the page. Free to start, no credit card.