Tips for Reading a Monologue

Video Transcript

"This is Dr. Charles Grimes. I'm speaking on behalf of Expert Village about analyzing a text and beginning to rehearse your monologue. Another reason to read the entire play is to find the style, the distinctive voice of the playwright in that particular play. You should know what the playwright is going for, what experience the playwright has intended to create in the audience's mind. This shows that you are a responsive artist who knows how to read carefully. Let's take one example. I'm looking at a play called Twelfth Night by Shakespeare, which is often called a comedy, but it's often called a problem comedy. It has elements that lead us to be unhappy almost as much as it has elements to lead us to be happy and laughing. There are elements of melancholia and despair in the play. So, to say it's a comedy is true, but to be more detailed and response to this entire play, we need to know enough that there are sad and dark elements within the play. Your job as an actor is to know that so that when you perform, you have a sense of the artistic context into which your monologue is going to fit. Perhaps you might foreshadow in your comic monologue that you might pick from such a play something unsettling or upsetting is going to happy to your character. And when you're talking about the play, when you're researching it, know exactly what kind of a play it is. If you've been told what type of play you're auditioning for, your job is to know in aesthetic terms as much as possible about this play, and that will put you in a good light and show you someone who has done extra work."