Angels In America
Joe monologue from Angels In America
- Play
- Tony Kushner
- Men
- Playing age 20s–30s
- About 1:15
- Dramatic
Joe’s monologue from the play Angels In America by Tony Kushner. A dramatic piece for men with a playing age of 20s–30s, running about 1:15.
The setup
In this monologue, Joe begs his wife, Harper, to stay with him even though she knows he is attracted to men. They are both Mormons. Age Range: 25-35
The full speech. Read it out loud twice before you start working it.
Joe’s monologue
Stay. We can fix it. I pray for that. I pray for God to crush me, break me up into little pieces and start all over again…I had a book of Bible stories when I was a kid. There was a picture I’d look at twenty times every day: Jacob wrestles with the angel. I don’t really remember the story, or why the wrestling—just the picture. Jacob is young and very strong. The angel is . . . a beautiful man, with golden hair and wings, of course. I still dream about it. Many nights. I’m . . . It’s me. In that struggle. Fierce, and unfair. The angel is not human, and it holds nothing back, so how could anyone human win, what kind of a fight is that? It’s not just. Losing means your soul thrown down in the dust, your heart torn out from God’s. But you can’t not lose.
Excerpt for study and audition practice. Read the full play for context.
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About Angels In America
- Tony Kushner subtitled the play "A Gay Fantasia on National Themes."
- Part One, Millennium Approaches, won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and both parts won the Tony Award for Best Play.
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