Contemporary Monologues for Women

by Trilby James

  Herding Cats

  Lucinda Coxon

  WHO Justine, young professional, late twenties.

  TO WHOM Michael, her flatmate, late twenties.

  WHERE Sitting room, Justine’s flat.

  WHEN Present day.

  WHAT HAS JUST HAPPENED Justine has arrived back earlier than expected after a drinking session in a pub close to where she works. She has set the alarm off and interrupted Michael, who works for a telephone sex line posing as a teenage girl. Throughout the course of the play Justine has been resisting the advances of her boss, Nigel, a much older, married man. But once she starts to succumb and thinks she may be falling in love with him, it becomes apparent that she is not the only one he has been toying with. Nigel has designs on Alexandra, the new girl. Justine feels duped and humiliated. She loses her cool, and, as she explains to Michael, instead of doing the sensible thing and returning home, she goes to the pub. Back at the flat she feels terrible. She has disturbed Michael, who was on the phone to one of his clients. He is very patient with her, clears up where she has been sick and asks her if she wants to talk about it. She does.

  WHAT TO CONSIDER

  •

  Justine is single and in her late twenties. If you decide she is twenty-nine, how might it feel to be approaching thirty, with no prospect of marriage or children?

  •

  She describes herself as sad, angry, lonely and disappointed.

  •

  The exact job she does is unspecified. We assume that it is something to do with project-managing. Make a decision about this and decide on the nature of the company for which she works.

  •

  Justine uses alcohol to escape the pressures of work and to blot out her feelings of unhappiness.

  •

  What might be the emotional cost of pursuing a career and living an independent life in the city?

  •

  Her flatmate Michael is emotionally damaged and equally unable to find intimacy.

  WHAT SHE WANTS

  •

  For Michael to reassure her that she is normal. That her behaviour has been perfectly understandable and even reasonable given the circumstances. That she is not going mad.

  •

  To relieve her feelings of terror and abject loneliness. Notice how Justine needs to talk, to have Michael listen and hold her both physically and emotionally.

  KEYWORDS lost stupid cry horrible tired dark

  Justine

  ‘You’re looking very svelte’. He said. […] Svelte. As if everything was completely normal. […] I said: ‘Yes I know, it’s this alcohol-only diet. It’s fantastic. I’ve only been on it a fortnight and I’ve already lost three days.’ […] Am I stupid? […] I must be. […] Why did I want him? […] I don’t even know who he is. […] He took her to lunch. ‘It’s Alexandra’s first day… I’m taking her down to the Thai place,’ he said. I said fine. ‘She was a big help out in Hamburg,’ he said. ‘She speaks the language, her mother’s Swiss. She speaks Italian too. It’s a huge advantage in life having languages,’ he said. ‘Do you speak another language, Justine?’

  I said French. Bad schoolgirl French.

  And I thought he might have the balls to make a joke about bad schoolgirls. But he didn’t.

  I went to the pub. I wanted a drink. There was a leaving do on. Not someone I really know, but the same building. The graphics place up on the top floor, y’know. There was a woman there. She was nice to me.

  It made me cry.

  The emotion resurfaces for a moment. JUSTINE fights to collect herself.

  I went back to work.

  I was in his office, I was looking around.

  The scene fills her head. […]

  There’s nothing personal. He’s like the man who wasn’t there. I was thinking – it’s as if he doesn’t exist. It’s as if I just made him up. What was I thinking? […] I didn’t hear him come in. He looked surprised. He said: ‘Are you alright, Justine? Have you lost something?’

  I said: ‘What do you mean, Nigel.’ I mean, I knew what he meant but what could I say… I was going through his drawers, y’know? […] ‘Have you lost something?’

  ‘No.’ I said.

  And he just looked at me.

  ‘Look, Nigel… about Alexandra,’ I said…

  He said: ‘I think she’ll be an asset on the project.’ I said: ‘Oh, come off it – we all know you’re fucking her!’

  He said: ‘I beg your pardon?’ […]

  I said: ‘Christ, Nigel, she’s twenty-two and she can’t spell “Wednesday”, why else would you ever have given her a job?’ I said: ‘She’s twenty-two – your daughter’s eighteen! What’s the fuck’s the matter with you? It’s just horrible!’

  He said: ‘I think you had better go home. Go home and cool off.’

  She rests in the horror of it for a moment.

  I should have come straight home.

  Mary Kane saw me on the way out. She said: ‘You look ropey.’ I said: ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ She said: ‘I saw this coming.’

  I went back to the pub. The woman had gone. I stayed a bit anyway. Stayed quite a while.

  She struggles to piece together the rest.

  I got a cab home, I think. I know I did. The driver wanted to talk. I can’t remember what about. […]

  Sometimes I don’t know what I do all day. Michael. I get home and I’m so tired. It’s dark when I go out, it’s dark when I get home… and I’m so tired. […] ‘Have you lost something…? […] Sometimes I feel like I’m holding it all up, all on my own. […] I’m so lonely. […] And I’m so angry. […] And I feel very young sometimes. Like I haven’t got a clue. And I feel… […] Sad. No, not sad. Worse than sad… I feel… […] Disappointed.

  The Heresy of Love

  Helen Edmundson

  WHO Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz, a Hieronymite nun in the Convent of San Jerónimo, Mexico.

  TO WHOM Archbishop Aguiar Y Seijas.

  WHERE The locutory of the Convent.

  WHEN The seventeenth century.

  WHAT HAS JUST HAPPENED Sister Juana is a much-loved and respected writer and thinker. The Court hold her in great esteem, and the Church is tolerant of her outspokenness. But with the arrival of the new Archbishop, all this changes. He has reactionary views and orders Juana to stop her writing and cease all connection to the Court. Furthermore, her once-ally Bishop Santa Cruz, wrongly believing her to have slandered him, has betrayed her by publishing her otherwise private views on the Archbishop’s sermons. The Archbishop wants her tried before a private inquisition for her subversion, but he is prepared to make a deal with her. If she agrees to give up her intellectual pursuits and dedicate her life ‘to prayer and simple acts of charity’, he will spare her. The speech that follows is her response to him.

  WHAT TO CONSIDER

  •

  Sister Juana was a real woman, the play is based on historical fact. Imagine, then, the extraordinary courage of this woman at a time in history when women were for the most part regarded as wholly inferior to men.

  •

  Consider too the society that was happy to see a woman’s work published and performed. Before the new Archbishop was appointed, the Church and Court were closely allied, and Juana was very much in favour.

  •

  Juana is intellectually passionate. Watch that your emotions do not run away with you, keep connected to the thoughts she expresses. However fervent, excited and emotional she becomes, she remains clear in her thinking.

  WHAT SHE WANTS

  •

  To make clear to the Archbishop that she will not accept his terms.

  •

  To defend her right to speak and think freely.

  •

  To argue the need for tolerance as a way forward.

  •

  To argue that women are equal to men.

  •

  To defend the right of all women to have an opinion and to express that opin
ion openly.

  •

  To show that she is not acting out of arrogance or vanity, but remains humble in her thoughts and deeds.

  •

  To challenge the Archbishop. To expose his narrow-mindedness, his ignorance and his fear.

  KEYWORDS renounce regret love care despair devotion progression truth knowledge light wise

  Juana

  Your Grace?

  I am Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz.

  I’m told you wish to see me. […] There is something I would like to say, Your Grace. If you’ll allow it?

  Whilst I stand by every argument I made against your sermon of the mandate, it was never my intention to commit my thoughts to paper, nor to have them published and distributed about the city. It was never my desire to anger or humiliate you in that way. […] I wish only that you be aware of certain facts. Of what I did and did not intend. […] I am not afraid of standing trial. I will listen to your case, whatever it might be, and I will then refute it. […] I would defend my right to think and speak as I see fit. […] I will not renounce my life. I know you have condemned me for writing plays and poems for the Court, but I do not regret them. For they are tales of love, of care, of despair and of devotion too; all the things which make us what we are. And there are prelates came before you, and will come after you, I think, who see no harm in them at all.

  Nor can I regret the thoughts which I expressed upon your sermon. For are not all opinions put forth to be considered and responded to? Is that not the key to our progression? And why should men reserve all right to speak and write theology? If my thoughts are as learned, as exacting as a man’s, why should they not be heard? And I have heard and read some poor and crude theology from men and yet it’s given credence. If my arguments are flawed, if I am not as well informed as I should be, then criticise me, yes. And I will go away and think again and learn some more, and try again to reach towards the truth. Why should our faith fear knowledge? For knowledge comes from Him. And without it we would be as animals, wading through the mud and slime. Why should that light of knowledge be less precious, less miraculous in my mind than in yours? Where in the Bible does it say that girls cannot be wise? Show me, prove to me beyond all doubt that fact, and I will then be silent. […] There is no Devil in me. Nor do I do the Devil’s work. You call on devils, I suppose, for want of any answer.

  Why do you not look at me? […] I think you are afraid of me. Of all my sex. Why? Because we cannot be controlled? Or perhaps it is yourself you fear. Because to look on woman is to know you are a man. A human being. With all the frailty that implies. And all those hours you spend at night denying your humanity, they melt away. And you are left exposed!

  Honour

  Joanna Murray-Smith

  WHO Sophie, twenty-four, middle class, Cambridge undergraduate, daughter of Honor and George.

  TO WHOM Claudia, twenty-eight, Cambridge graduate, journalist, her father’s lover.

  WHERE Unspecified. Perhaps in the kitchen or sitting room of Honor and George’s house. Or perhaps somewhere outside, like a café or a park – you decide.

  WHEN Present day.

  WHAT HAS JUST HAPPENED George has left Honor after thirty-two years of marriage and has moved in with Claudia, a woman half his age and only four years older than Sophie. Sophie has contacted Claudia and has asked that she meet with her. During their exchange, Claudia describes what sex is like with Sophie’s father and tells her things about her parent’s relationship that she never knew.

  WHAT TO CONSIDER

  •

  Sophie is an only child.

  •

  She knows that she is something of a disappointment to her father.

  •

  The break-up of her parents’ marriage has left her raw and vulnerable.

  •

  Her father is now having sex with a woman almost her own age. How will Sophie feel about that?

  •

  Claudia is everything that Sophie isn’t: articulate, confident, beautiful and adored by George.

  •

  Claudia was at Cambridge graduating with first-class honours when Sophie had just started.

  •

  The feelings of jealousy and envy that Sophie is experiencing.

  WHAT SHE WANTS

  •

  To make sense of the confusion in her head.

  •

  To find a way of articulating her abstract feelings. Notice how she struggles for the necessary words.

  •

  To be heard and to be understood.

  •

  To remind Claudia that they were once a tight-knit family.

  •

  To reach out to Claudia (almost like a big sister) for comfort, despite being angry at her for taking her father away.

  •

  To be like Claudia.

  KEYWORDS impossibility choking jungle darkness fallen

  Sophie

  You’re so – you’re so clear. You seem so clear about things. Whereas I’m – I’m so – I can never quite say what I’m – even to myself, I’m so inarticulate. (Beat.) Some nights I lie awake and I go over the things I’ve said. Confidently. The things I’ve said confidently and they – they fall to pieces. (Beat.) And where there were words there is now just – just this feeling of – of impossibility. That everything is – there’s no way through it – (Beat.) I used to feel that way when I was very small. That same feeling. Not a childish feeling – well, maybe. As if I was choking on – as if life was coming down on me and I couldn’t see my way through it. What does a child who has everything suffer from? Who could name it? I can’t. I can’t. (Breaking.) But it was a – a sort of – I used to see it in my head as jungle. Around me. Surrounding me. Some darkness growing, something – organic, alive – and the only thing that kept me – kept me – here – was the picture of Honor and of George. Silly. (Beat.) Because I’m old now and I shouldn’t remember that any more. Lying in bed and feeling that they were there: outside the room in all their – their warmth, their – a kind of charm to them. Maybe you’re right and it was – not so simple as it looked, but they gave such a strong sense of – love for each other and inside that – I felt – I felt loved. And since I’ve gotten older I don’t feel – (Weeping.) I feel as if all that – all the – everything that saved me has fallen from me and you know, I’m not a child any more. No. I’m not a kid any more. But I still feel – I need – I need… (Beat.) I wish – I wish I was more – Like you. Like you.

  How Love is Spelt

  Chloë Moss

  WHO Peta, twenty, Liverpudlian.

  TO WHOM Colin, forty-two, her boyfriend and the father of her unborn baby.

  WHERE Peta’s bedsit, London.

  WHEN Present day.

  WHAT HAS JUST HAPPENED Peta has run away to London for a couple of weeks in an attempt to get away from her life back in Liverpool. She gave no warning, leaving only a note for Colin by way of explanation. She is pregnant with Colin’s baby and needs time and space to figure out what it is she wants. After a series of unhappy encounters she feels fearful, misses Colin and asks him to come and take her home. Before they leave, Peta is insistent that Colin listens to her. She needs to tell him things.

  WHAT TO CONSIDER

  •

  Peta has had a troubled life and ran away from home when she was sixteen.

  •

  Peta’s mother disowned her and her father shows no interest.

  •

  We are given to understand that Colin has rescued Peta from a life that might otherwise have been lived on the streets.

  •

  He is twenty-two years older than her, set in his ways, and as much a father to her as a lover. He has given Peta stability, but she feels trapped by the certainty/predictability of their life together, especially now that she is pregnant.

  •

  Peta has hurt Colin by leaving in the way that she did.

  •

  Colin tells her tha
t if he is to take her back she must prove to him that she is ready to commit both to him and to the baby.