Are you funny? Like a clown? Do you amuse me? Are you here for my entertainment? Let’s face it, being funny is one of the most deceptively hard things to do on command. There is a science to comedy. It’s mathematical, its calculated, it requires precision and pinpoint timing. Farts are also funny.But in the case you find yourself too bashful to break wind in the audition room. Here is a list of comedic monologues for boys to practice on.
1. Tartuffe By Moliere
TARTUFFE: A love of heavenly beauty does not preclude
A proper love for earthly pulchritude;
Our senses are quite rightly captivated
By perfect works our Maker has created.
Some glory clings to all that Heaven has made;
In you, all Heaven’s marvels are displayed.
On that fair face, such beauties have been lavished,
The eyes are dazzled and the heart is ravished;
How could I look on you, O flawless creature,
And not adore the Author of all Nature,
Feeling a love both passionate and pure
For you, his triumph of self-portraiture?
At first, I trembled lest that love should be
A subtle snare that Hell had laid for me;
I vowed to flee the sight of you, eschewing
A rapture that might prove my soul’s undoing;
But soon, fair being, I became aware
That my deep passion could be made to square
With rectitude, and with my bounden duty.
I thereupon surrendered to your beauty.
It is, I know, presumptuous on my part
To bring you this poor offering of my heart,
And it is not my merit, Heaven knows,
But your compassion on which my hopes repose.
You are my peace, my solace, my salvation;
On you depends my bliss – or desolation;
I bide your judgment and, as you think best,
I shall be either miserable or blest.
2. Fat Pig By Neil Lubute
TOM: I’m weak. That’s what I basically learned from our time together. I am a weak person,
and I don’t know if I can overcome that. No, maybe I do know. Yeah. I do know that I
am, and I can’t… overcome it, I mean. I think you are an amazing woman, I honestly do.
And I really love what we’ve had here. Our time together… But I think that we’re very
different people. Not just who we are- jobs or that kind of thing- but it does play into it
as well. Factors in. We probably should’ve realized this earlier, but I’ve been so happy
being near you that I just sorta overlooked it and went on. I did. But I feel it coming up
now, more and more, and I just think- No, that’s bullshit, actually, the whole work thing.
3. The Importance of Being Earnest By Oscar Wilde
ALGERNON: I haven’t the smallest intention of dining with Aunt Augusta. To begin with, I dined thereon Monday, and once a week is quite enough to dine with one’s own relations. In thesecond place, whenever I do dine there I am always treated as a member of the family,and sent down with either no woman at all, or two. In the third place, I know perfectlywell whom she will place me next to, to-night. She will place me next Mary Farquhar,who always flirts with her own husband across the dinner-table. That is not very pleasant. Indeed, it is not even decent . . . and that sort of thing is enormously on the increase. The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one’s clean linen in public.
4. The Cherry Orchard BY Anton Chekov
TROFIMOV: All Russia is our orchard. The land is great and beautiful, there are many marvellous places in it. (Pause) Think, Anya, your grandfather, your great-grandfather, and all your ancestors were serf-owners, they owned living souls; and now, doesn’t something human look at you from every cherry in the orchard, every leaf and every stalk? Don’t you hear voices…? Oh, it’s awful, your orchard is terrible; and when in the evening or at night you walk through the orchard, then the old bark on the trees sheds a dim light and the old cherry-trees seem to be dreaming of all that was a hundred, two hundred years ago, and are oppressed by their heavy visions. Still, at any rate, we’ve left those two hundred years behind us. So far we’ve gained nothing at all—we don’t yet know what the past is to be to us—we only philosophize, we complain that we are dull, or we drink vodka. For it’s so clear that in order to begin to live in the present we must first redeem the past, and that can only be done by suffering, by strenuous, uninterrupted labour. Understand that, Anya.
5. The Book of Mormon by Matt Stone, Robert Lopez, and Trey Parker
ELDER PRICE: Well, well… If it isn’t the SUPER MORMON. Spreading “the word”?! Making more – BRAIN WASHED ZOMBIES?! How is it YOU converted all those people into Mormons! You get everything you pray for. YOU’RE doing everything I was supposed to do. Doesn’t that seem a little telling to you?! The universe doesn’t work the way we were told! When I was nine years old… My family took a trip to Orlando, Florida. It was the most wonderful, most magical place I had ever seen. I said to myself “THIS is where I want to spend eternity!” My parents told me that if I made God proud, and did whatever the church asked, in the Latter Days I could have whatever I wanted. So I WORKED and I WORKED. And even when I studied Mormon stories and I thought, ‘That doesn’t make ANY SENSE’, I KEPT WORKING because I was told ONE DAY — I would get my reward!! Planet Orlando! But what do I have now? I can’t even get a ticket home…
6. THE RETURN BY Reg Cribb
STEVE: No, no, no… ya can’t turn back now. I’m startin’ to see you as the voice of a very misunderstood section of our society. But you know… there’s a million of me getting’ round, mate. And they’ll all tell ya they had a tough life. You know, beaten up by their dad, in trouble with the cops, pisshead mum, rough school. A million fuckin’ excuses why they turned out to be bad eggs.
And I got all of the above… Oh yeah! Truth is, most of ―em are just bored. They leave their shit-ass state school and live on the dole in their diddly bumfuck nowhere suburb. Before ya know it, ya got some girl up the duff and no money. She spends the day with a screamin’ sprog and a fag in her mouth plonked in front of a daytime soap wearin her tracky daks all day, dreamin’ of bein’ swept away by some Fabio and she just gets… fatter. But… her Centrelink payments have gone up and all her fat friends are waitin’ in line behind her!
It’s a career move for ―em. Gettin up the duff. And you… drink with ya mates, watch the footy and the highlight of the week is the local tavern has a skimpy barmaid every Friday. And ya know the rest of the world is havin a better time. Ya just know it. The magazines are tellin’ ya that, the newspapers, the telly.
Everybody’s richer, everybody’s more beautiful, and everybody’s got more… purpose. And ya thinkin’, how do I make sense of this dog-ass life? And then one day ya just get hold of a gun. Ya don’t even know what ya gonna do with it. It’s like the sound of a V8 in the distance. It takes ya… somewhere else. [Pause.] I didn’t see ya writin’ any of this down. I’m spillin’ my guts out in the name of art and you don’t give a shit. What sort of writer are ya?
7. SECRET BRIDESMAIDS BUSINESS BY Elizabeth Coleman
JAMES: Look, sex and love are separate things…Well, they can be, that’s all I’m saying. This thing with Naomi- okay, it should never have happened-but it didn’t have to impact on what I have with Meg. I thought that was the deal. It was a separate arrangement. She told me she just wanted a bit of fun, and now she turns around and does this…! I mean, where the hell did that come from? If I’d known Naomi felt like that I would’ve broken it off with her months ago. Well maybe. Oh shit, maybe not. But I just-I just wish women would say what they mean. You know-plainly, clearly state what they want instead of expecting you to be psychic. Meg bought me this T-shirt at the Warner Brothers store, and it’s got a picture of Superman on it. He’s wearing this perplexed expression and he’s saying You want me to leap tall buildings and be sensitive and supportive?! That’s how it is with women. They want you to slay a dragon for them one second, then cry at a guide dog commercial the next.
And somehow you’re expected to guess when they want you to be controlling and when they want you to be crying-and if you don’t make the right guess at the right time it’s instantly construed as proof that you don’t love them enough. If you really loved me you wouldn’t need to ask. How many times have I heard that? Well I’m sorry, I’ve loved a few people a lot, but no-one’s ever stepped out of the shadows and handed me a crystal ball. Anyway, I know I’m trying to change the subject. The fact is, I’ve been acting like a prick.
8. COSI By Louis Nowra
DOUG: It was the fault of the psychiatrist. I’d been seeing him because of my pyromania-that’s a person who likes lighting fires-but you probably know that being University educated. You know the problem with pyromania? It’s the only crime where you have to be at the scene of it to make it a perfect crime, to give yourself satisfaction. “Course, that means the chances of you getting caught are greater, especially if you’re standing in front of the fire, face full of ecstasy and with a gigantic hard on. So, the cops got me and I’m sent to the shrink. He tells me that I’ve got an unresolved problem with my mother. I think, hello, he’s not going to tell me to do something Oedipal, like fuck her or something…but that wasn’t the problem. My ego had taken a severe battering from her. He said I had better resolve it, stop treating her like I was still a child. It made some sort of cosmic sense. I had to stand up to her. So I thought about it and realized that I had to treat it like a boxing match, get the first punch in, so to speak, to give me the upper hand in our relationship. She had five cats.
One night I rounded them up, put them in a cage, doused them with petrol and put a match to them. Well, boy, oh, boy, what a racket! They were running around the backyard burning and howling-there’s no such thing as grace under pressure for a burning cat, let me tell you. I hid in the shrubs when Mum came outside to see what was happening. Totally freaked out, she did. Five of them, running around the backyard like mobile bonfires. I figured I’d wait a couple of hours till the cats were dead and mum was feeling a bit sorry for herself and I’d knock on the front door and say to her ‘Hi, mum, I’ve come to talk about our unresolved conflicts’ but, oh, no, one of those cats ran into the house. In a couple of minutes the whole bloody house was alight and within half an hour there was no bloody front door to knock on. (a beat) If it wasn’t for that damn cat, I wouldn’t be here.
9. THE VORTEX BY Noel Coward
NICKY: Look at me. You’ve given me nothing my whole life. Nothing that counts. You forget what I’ve seen tonight Mother. I’ve seen you make a vulgar disgusting scene in your own house, and on top of that, humiliate yourself before a boy half your age. The misery of losing Bunty faded away when that happened. Everything is comparative after all. You ran after him up the stairs because your vanity wouldn’t let you lose him. It isn’t that you love him, no, that would be easier – you only love them loving you. All your so-called passion and temperament is false. Your whole existence has degenerated into an endless empty craving for admiration and flattery, and you say you’ve done no harm to anybody? Father used to be a clever man, with a strong will and a capacity for enjoying almost anything, but now, he’s nothing. A complete non- entity because his spirit has been crushed. How could it be otherwise? You’ve let him down consistently for years! And God knows I’m nothing for him to look forward to. But I might have been if it hadn’t been for you! You’re not happy. You’re never happy. You’re fighting all the time to keep your youth and your looks, as though they mattered in the end. You’re not young or beautiful. I’m seeing for the first time just how old you are. It’s horrible. With your silly fair hair and your face all plastered and painted. Mother! Mother, sit up! Now then, you’re not going to have any more lovers. You’re not going to be beautiful or successful ever again. You’re going to be my mother for once. It’s about time I had one before I go over the edge altogether. I love you really…that’s why it’s so awful.
10. THE DAYS & NIGHTS OF BEEBEE FENSTERMAKER By: William Snyder
BOB: My name is Bob Smith, care of Claude and Esther Berry Smith, Box 231, Hughes, Arkansas. I’m twenty-five years old and I have an eighth grade education. My daddy run me clean out of town. Bought me a one way ticket on a Trailways Bus. Told me he’d buy me a one way ticket to anyplace in the U.S.A. Even rode with me as far as Le-Hi. (Pronounced Lee-High) to make sure I didn’t pull a fast one and slip back after sundown. He said Hughes wasn’t big enough for the both of us. Hughes is tee-ninecy all right. But I didn’t think it was that small. Last I seen of my Daddy was when the bus puled into Le-Hi. he got off the bus and bought me a Dr. Pepper and this comic book. (pulls a comic book from hip pocket) He said, “Well, so long, Bob. I’ll see you in the funny papers.” Before I could even say anything he skipped across the highway and was thumbin a ride back to Hughes. That was the last I seen of my daddy. The very last I seen of him before he took off for Hughes. I bet he was back there before supper. I know he’s back there by now.
(Pleasantly, He looks at the kitchen table) I wonder what Momma and Daddy had for supper? Fried chicken most likely. I sure do love friend chicken.
I sure do miss Hughes. I never been no further than Blackfish Lake cept the time Momma and Daddy took me up to hear Reverend Moore Preach a revival at Proctor. Momma’s a bug on religion, but old Reverend Moore’s one somebody sure igged her. Reverend Moores the shoutin foot stompin kind of religion, and Momma’s is the toe the line, hoe the row kind. They don’t even sing in Momma’s church. It was started up right there in Hughes by Reverend Bitsie Trotter. He does odd jobs with a pick-up truck during the week. Folks said the reason he didn’t allow singing was cause he couldn’t carry a tune.
