GRAPES OF WRATH
Choose a monologue from the ones below that fits what you feel is your strength (gender appropriate). I am looking for someone who can show a variety of emotional levels within the monologue in a manner that is honest, passionate, but restrained.
Here are a few monologues but you may choose your own:
MA JOAD (wise, older): You're gonna have a baby Rosasharn, and that's somepin to you lonely and away. That's gonna hurt you, and the hurt'll be a lonely hurt, an' this here truck is alone in the worl'. They's a time of change, an' when that comes, dyin' is a piece of dyin', and bearin' is a piece of all bearin', an' bearin' an' dyin' is tow pieces of the same thing. An' then things ain't lonely any more.
ROSE OF SHARON (naive, young, pregnant):
Well we talked about it, me an' Connie. Ma, we wanna live in a town. Connie gonna get a job in a store or maybe a fact'ry. AN' he's gonna study at home, maybe radios, os he can get to be an expert an' maybe later have his own store. An' we'll go to pitchers whenever. An' Connie says I' gonna have a doctor when the baby's born; an' he says we'll see how time is, an' maybe I'll go to a hospiddle.
TOM (passionate, collected):
I know, Ma. I'm a-tryin. But them deputies - Ma, if it was the law they was workin' with, why, we could take it. But it ain't the law. They're a-workin away at our spirits. They're a-tryin' to make us cringe an' crawl like a whipped dog. They tryin' to break us. Why, they comes a time when the on'y way a fella can keep his decency is by takin' a sock at a cop. They're workin' on our decency.
UNCLE JOHN (tortured, jovial):
I was married - fine, good girl. An' one night she got a pain in her stomach. An' she says "You better get a doctor." An' I says "hell, you jus' et too much." She gave me a look. An' she graoned all night, an' she died the next afternoon. You see, I kil't her. An' sence then I tried to make it up - mos'ly to kids. An' I tried to be good, an ' I can't. I get drunk, an' I go wild.
OF MICE AND MEN
George: God Almighty, if I was alone, I could live so easy. I could go get a job of work and no trouble. No mess…and when the end of the month come, I could take my fifty bucks and go into town and get whatever I want. Why, I could stay in a cat-house all night. I could eat any place I want. Order any damn thing. I could do that every month. Get a gallon of whiskey or set in a pool room and play cards or shoot pool. And what have I got? I got you. You can’t keep a job and you lose me every job I get! Just keep shovin’ all over the country all the time. And that ain’t the worst –you get in trouble. You do bad things and I got to get you out. It ain’t bad people that raises hell. It’s dumb ones. You crazy son-of-a-bitch, you keep me in hot water all the time. You just want to feel a girl’s dress. Just wanta pet it like it was a mouse. Well, how the hell’d she know you just wanta feel her dress? How’d she know you’d just hold onto it like it was a mouse?
Lennie: I was only foolin’, George. I don’t want no ketchup. I wouldn’t eat no ketchup if it was right here beside me. I wouldn’t eat no ketchup, George. I’d leave it all for you. You could cover your beans so deep with it, and I wouldn’t touch none of it. You want I should go away and leave you alone? I could go off in the hills there Some place I could find a cave. I’d find things to eat. I don’t need no nice food with ketchup. I’d lay out in the sun and nobody would hurt me. And if I found a mouse –why, I could keep it. Wouldn’t nobody take it away from me. If you don’t want me, I can go right in them hills, and find a cave. I can go away any time. If you don’t want me, you only gotta say so. I’ll go right up on them hills and live by myself. And I won’t get no mice stole from me.
Candy (stoop-shouldered old man, hand is gone at the wrist): I got hurt four years ago. They’ll can me pretty soon. Jest as soon as I can’t swamp out no bunkhouses they’ll put me on the county. Maybe if I give you guys my money, you’ll let me hoe in the garden, even when I ain’t no good at it. And I’ll wash dishes and little chicken stuff like that. But hell, I’ll be on our own place. I’ll be let to work on our own place. You seen what they done to my dog. They says he wasn’t no good to himself nor nobody else. But when I’m that way nobody’ll shoot me. I wish somebody would. They won’t do nothing like that. I won’t have no place to go and I can’t get no more jobs.
Carlson (big-stomached, powerful): Well, looka here, Slim, I been thinkin’. That dog of Candy’s is so goddamn old he can’t barely walk. Stinks like hell. Every time Candy brings him in the bunkhouse, I can smell him for two or three days. Why don’t you get Candy to shoot his ol’ dog, and give him one of them pups to raise up? I an smell that dog a mile off. Got no teeth. Can’t eat. Candy feeds him milk. He can’t chew nothing else. And leadin’ him round on a string so he don’t bump into things…
Curley’s wife (beautiful): Who you callin’ a tart! I come from a nice home. I was brung up by nice people. Nobody never got to me before I was married. I was straight. I tell you I was good. I was. You know Curley. You know he wouldn’t stay with me if he wasn’t sure. I tell you Curley is sure. You got no right to call me a tart. Sure I got a man. He ain’t never home. I got nobody to talk to. I got nobody to be with. Think I can just sit home and do nothin’ but cook for Curley? I want to see somebody. Just see ‘em an’ talk to ‘em. There ain’t no women. I can’t walk to town. And Curley don’t take me to no dances now. I tell you I jus’ want to talk to somebody. I just wanta be nice.
Slim (tall, dark man in blue-jeans and short denim jacket, carries a crushed Stetson hat under his arm): Say, you sure was right about him. Maybe he ain’t bright—but I never seen such a worker. He damn near killed his partner buckin’ barley. He’d take his end of that sack—( a gesture) pretty near kill his partner. God Almighty, I never seen such a strong guy. Funny how you and him string along together. Hardly none of the guys ever travels around together. I hardly never seen two guys travel together. You know how the hands are. They come in and get their bunk and work a month and then they quit and go on alone. Never seem to give a damn about nobody. Jest seems kinda funny. A cuckoo like him and a smart guy like you traveling together.