Louis monologue from Angels In America

Louis’s monologue

You have always hated me. Because you are in love with Prior and you were when I met him and he fell in love with me, and so now you cook up this . . . I mean how do you know this? That Joe and Roy Cohn are— I don’t believe you. Not . . . Roy Cohn. Joe wouldn’t—Not Roy Cohn. He’s, he’s like the polestar of human evil, he’s like the worst human being who ever lived, the, the damage he’s done, the years and years of, of . . . criminality, that whole era, that— Give me fucking credit for something, please, some little moral shred of, of, of something, OK sure I fucked up, I fucked up everything, I didn’t want to, to face what I needed to face, what life was insisting I face but I don’t know, I’ve always, I’ve always felt you had to, to take action, not sit, not to be, to be trapped, um, stuck, paralyzed by— Even if it’s hard, or really terrifying, or even if it does damage, you have to keep moving, um, forward, instead of— I can’t just, you know, sit around feeling shit, or feeling like shit, I . . . cry way too easily, I fall apart, I’m no good unless I, I strike out at— Which is easy because I’m so fucking furious at my— So I fucked up spectacularly, totally, I’ve ruined my life, and his life, I’ve hurt him so badly but but still, even I, even I am not so utterly lost inside myself that I— I wouldn’t, um, ever, like, sleep with someone who . . . someone who’s Roy Cohn’s . . . Oh no.

Excerpt for study and audition practice. Read the full play for context.