How to Do a Monologue… Badly
I spend quite a bit of my spare time on YouTube, – no not looking at goats and kittens, but looking at clips of people’s monologues. I like to study what I think the actors’ strengths and weaknesses are. It’s a nice way to see what the common mistakes are, and how people can produce stronger monologues for performance.
Monologues are very easy to get wrong. I want to share with you how to do a monologue badly, so that you can avoid these problems. Just to make this clear for people that are sarcasm deficient, it’s written sarcastically…
Don’t Break It Down - don’t work out what the beginning, middle and end of the monologue are. Don’t break the monologue down into chunks, just treat it as one large chunk. Don’t work out what the climax is and work towards it, just explode randomly at some point.
Paint it All in One Colour – Work out what the general emotional state of the character is and just do that with varying degrees of loudness throughout the piece. If you think you’re not getting it, force the emotions out at a higher pitch, audiences love to see you strain. No matter what happens, don’t try to do something differently in each chunk, that attention drawing technique will certainly detract from the audience’s chance of having a wee snooze while you work.
Mix Up the Eye Line – One minute the person you’re talking to is 6ft tall, the next minute they’re on the floor, next they are on the left, now they’ve moved to right.
Wander About – Move around aimlessly or put lots of movement in it, in a 2 minute monologue, you should try to move at least 10 tens, don’t want the viewer to get bored.
Finish Before the Audience Do – As soon as you get to the final line, look up for the audience’s reaction, or the casting director’s approval, don’t worry, they won’t mind, they don’t need time to think about the last moment of your monologue.
Don’t Practice the Lines Much – It’s always best to stay fresh, the audience can’t tell if you make it up in the moment, and those moments when you are clearly searching for the line with a look of terror in your eyes – they just add to the performance.