How to Act a Monologue Part 5

Today is Part 5 to my Step by Step Guide to How to Act a Monologue. If you’d like to read from the start, click here. 

In the previous blog, we explored breaking Sonya’s monologue down into chunks, and being clear about the dramatic structure from HOOK through the MIDDLE to the CLIMAX and finally the end.

Today, we’re going to take that broken down monologue and look at adding some self-direction to it.

Here’s the script in chunks.

The next job is to look at each chunk. Considering two things. Bearing in mind the Task, what should we see happening in each chunk.  We direct this with an adverb and a verb. The adverb gives us a quality and a verb gives us something active to do.

We should look at each chunk and assign an Adverb/Verb label, this is a piece of direction to ourselves for what the audience should see. It gives us a starting point for shaping our behaviour and performance when we do a monologue.

Take a look at that first chunk:

It’s the hook, we need to capture the audience’s attention with it. We want them to want to know more of what Sonya is going to say. We also need to work through the task.

What’s the Actor’s Mindset for that Task? To get someone to put their faith in me. Faith is something that cannot be proven, there’s no evidence, you just have to have faith. So Vanya has no faith at the moment, so much of this speech will be about telling him that although she has no proof, he should faith in their ability to survive their misery.

Here, I think it might be good to ENTHUSIASTICALLY ROUSE. It makes a good HOOK.

Let’s take a look at Chunk 2:

I would try something like WARMLY CONSOLE. I’ve chosen console because I want to save REASSURE for the END chunk, because it will be a stronger finish.

I am not trying to sum up that section of text. I am imagining how I could approach that pieces of text through the mindset of To Get Someone to Put their Faith in Me. 

In Chunk 3, it is a little sadder, but she is trying to get him to put faith in her words.

So, I would go with SOLEMNLY VOW.

In Chunk 4, there is hope, there is a bright side, so we need something to lift us from the solemnity of the previous, I would personally go with HOPEFULLY LIFT.

Chunk 5 is small chunk, and through the Mindset of the task, I like TENDERLY PROMISE.

In Chunk 6, this is the climax, we need to reach the peak of our intensity here and the labels should somewhat reflect that. I can imagine her clutching at his hands, promising this, but we’ve already used VOW and PROMISE, so we need something different. I went for TIGHTLY EMBRACE. Not physically of course, but psychologically. Like I am holding him tightly in a warm embrace.

In the final chunk, Chunk 7, I’ve saved REASSURE, so for this one, I’ll go with SYMPATHETICALLY REASSURE. 

So the psychological journey for Sonya through this monologue is thus:

• ENTHUSIASTICALLY ROUSE

• WARMLY CONSOLE

• SOLEMNLY VOW

• HOPEFULLY LIFT

• TENDERLY PROMISE

• TIGHTLY EMBRACE

• SYMPATHETICALLY REASSURE

By having 7 chunks, we ensure that we avoid that very uniform, drab one note monologue that we’ve all seen delivered.

Tomorrow we will explore ensuring that the chunks have enough variety in them by exploring sizes and speeds.