How to Outline 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. The very first thing you do, just prior to rehearsing your monologue is to find the beginning, the middle and the end. I'm referring back to everyone's friend Aristotle, who defined the unity that we're looking for in any dramatic composition. So your monologue has a beginning that introduces what the problem is, what the issue is, and begins to show your character doing something about it. The first beat of your monologue, as it were, is that character choosing to do something and trying to get that thing, and beginning the process of getting that thing. Then in the middle, is going to be a number of strategies, tactics, techniques, that your character is going to use to get what he or she wants. At the end, there's going to be something that summarizes and caps off the speech and lets us know whether the character has gotten or not gotten what he or she wants. I'm going to have my actor friend, Frank, Hank, tell us, give us one monologue that he's rehearsing in a play. It's fairly brief, only about 35 seconds, a little too short to audition for, but just right for our demonstration purposes. So I'd like you to listen to it with an idea of what the beginning is, what the middle is, and what the end is, and then I'll tell you what I think those three things are. Go ahead. The man issue is a singular issue and quite distinct from our previous work. So an element might well approximate points and procedures from some of your previous activities. All is dependant on the attitude of our subject. If all events come again I can assure you that the assignment will be carried out and the mission accomplished with no excessive aggravation to you or myself. Satisfied? Wonderful. Thank you Hank. So there we have a fairly small chunk of text. I think we can say that the first sentence pretty much equals the beginning. It shows Goldberg's decisions to get up and to begin defining for his friend McCann who he's talking to, the job they're about to do, and in doing so, to calm McCann down. He wants to give McCann information that will result in a more harmonious working environment. So the first sentence starts that. Then we have two or three sentences, which give us a number of reasons why McCann should calm down because this is a typical regular sort of a job. Then there is a summary at the end, in which Goldberg tries to drive home the point, and then finally, asks McCann for a decision about whether or not he has in fact been calmed down. Hence, I can assure you that the assignment will be carried out and the mission accomplished with no excessive aggravation to you or myself. Satisfied? So somewhere in that last phrase is the ending of the monologue which caps it off and brings it right back to the person it's spoken to. So there you can see in any one chunk of text, big or small, you can identify a sequence-- a beginning, and a middle and an end."