Florry's favourite pattern is the Sunbonnet Sue. Mother taught her how to do
applique blocks and since then she's made probably a dozen “Sunbonnet.
Mayfield Secondary School 5000 Mayfield Road Caledon ON L7C 0Z5 phone 905-846-6060 fax 905-843-9543
DRAMA
Monologue Package Read over the four monologues for your gender. Select the one that interests you the most; the one you can “see” yourself performing. Memorize it exactly. Line security is important. Check the definition and pronunciation of any words unfamiliar to you. Practice saying the monologue aloud, suggesting the personality of the character you are portraying through your tone of voice and body language. Don’t worry about a costume.
FEMALE A LOSS OF ROSES by William Inge A woman remembers her first day in school. LILA: I remember my first day at school. Mother took me by the hand and I carried a bouquet of roses, too. Mama had let me pick the loveliest roses I could find in the garden, and the teacher thanked me for them. Then Mama left me and I felt kinda scared, ‘cause I’d never been any place before without her; but she told me Teacher would be Mama to me at school and would treat me as nice as she did. So I took my seat with all the other kids, their faces so strange and new to me. And I started talking with a little boy across the aisle. I didn’t know it was against the rules. But Teacher came back and slapped me, so hard that I cried, and I ran to the door ‘cause I wanted to run home to Mama quick as I could. But teacher grabbed me by the hand and pulled me back to my seat. She said I was too big a girl to be running home to Mama and I had to learn to take my punishment when I broke the rules. But I still cried. I told Teacher I wanted back my roses. But she wouldn’t give them to me. She shook her finger and said, when I gave away lovely presents, I couldn’t expect to get them back.....I guess I never learned that lesson very well. There’s so many things I still want back. FEMALE WHAT I DID LAST SUMMER by A.R. Gurney Bonny, 14 Bonny talks to us while waiting for a friend. BONNY: You know where this is? This is the place out on the back road where Charlie and Ted and I used to sell lemonade in the old days. I got a secret note from Charlie, asking me to meet him here, so here I am. (Looks around.) I shouldn’t even be here. My parents would kill me if they knew. They think he’s bad news from the word go. My mother thinks he’s worse than Ted, even. So I had to lie to them. I told them I was going over to Janice’s to listen to the “Hit Parade.” Oh, I’m lying more and more! Is this what it means to become a woman? And why is it we women are always drawn to such dangerous men? I feel like Juliet, in Shakespeare’s play of the same name. Who says this whole thing isn’t secretly about me? What a scary place this is, at night. Right around here is where Margie Matthews met that skunk. And here’s where the Harvey’s dachshund named Pickle was run over by the milkman. If I had any sense, I’d go over to Janice’s after all. Anything, but stand around and wait for a crazy boy who’s run away from his own home! But I can’t let him down.
FEMALE QUILTERS By Barbara Darnashek and Molly Newman The “Quilters” are pioneer women who tell of their life experiences in the west. Here Annie tells about her attempts to resist the quilting chores. ANNIE: (to the audience) My ambition is to become a doctor like my father. I’m my father’s girl. My greatest accomplishment was when I was ten years old and was successful in chopping off a chicken’s head and then dressing it for a chicken dinner. My mother tries to make me do quilts all the time, but I don’t want nothing to do with it. I told her, “Never in my life will I stick my fingers til they bleed.” Very definitely. My sister Florry is a real good quilter, I guess. Mother says so all the time. Florry’s favourite pattern is the Sunbonnet Sue. Mother taught her how to do applique blocks and since then she’s made probably a dozen “Sunbonnet Sue” quilts. You’ve seen ‘em, they’re like little dolls turned sideways with big sunbonnets on. Florry makes each one different. (Annie demonstrates, mimicking Florry.) In one her little foot is turned this or that, or she’ll give her a little parasol, or turn the hat a little bit. People think they’re sooo cute. She made one for everybody in the family, so now there are little “Sunbonnet Sue” quilts all over the house. She made a couple of ‘em for her friends, and last Spring, when we all got promoted at school, she presented one to our teacher. I nearly died. And she’s still at it. Let me tell you, she’s driving me crazy with her “Sunbonnet Sues.” So I decided to make one quilt and give it to Florry. Like I said, I’m not such a good quilter as her, but I knew just what I wanted to do with this one. It’s real small. Twin bed size. I finished it and put it on her bed this morning, but I don’t think she’s seen it yet. I guess I done some new things with “Sunbonnet Sue.” I call it the Demise of Sunbonnet Sue. Each little block is different, just like Florry does it. I’ve got a block of her hanging, another one with a knife in her chest, eaten by a snake, eaten by a frog, struck by lightning, and burned up. I’m sorta proud of it. You should see it ... It turned out real good! (She exits smiling.)
FEMALE THE FIGHTING DAYS by Wendy Lill In this play, set in 1910, Canadian feminist Nellie McClung speaks up for the rights of women. NELLIE: My name is Nellie McClung and I’m a disturber. Disturbers are never popular. Nobody likes an alarm clock in action, no matter how grateful they are later for its services! But I’ve decided that I’m going to keep on being a disturber. I’m not going to pull through life like a thread that has no knot. I want to leave something behind when I go; some small legacy of truth, some word that will shine in a dark place. And I want that word to be ...DEMOCRACY! Democracy for Women. Because I’m a firm believer in Women, in their ability to see things and feel things and improve things. I believe that it is Women who set the standards for the world and it is up to us, the Women of Canada, to set the standards ... HIGH! Maybe I’m sort of a dreamer, maybe I’m sort of of naive ... but I look at my little girls and boys and I think I want a different world for them than the one I was born into. I look at them and my heart cries out when I see them slowly turn towards the roles the world has carved for them: my girls, a life of cooking and sewing and servicing the needs of men; and the boys, scrapping and competing in the playground, then right up into the corridors of government, or even worse, the battlefields. I want them to have a choice about their lives. We mothers are going to fight for the rights of our little girls to think and dream and speak out. We’re going to refuse to bear and rear sons to be shot at on faraway battlefields. Women need the vote to bring about a better, more equitable, peaceful society, and we’re going to get it!
MALE THE GLASS MENAGERIE by Tennessee Williams TOM: Listen! You think I’m crazy about the warehouse? You think I’m in love with the Continental Shoemakers? You think I want to spend fifty-five years down there in that--celotex interior! with--fluorescent tubes! Look! I’d rather somebody picked up a crowbar and battered out my brains--than go back mornings! I go! Every time you come in yelling that “Rise and Shine!” “Rise and Shine!” I say to myself, “How lucky dead people are!” But I get up. I go! For sixty-five dollars a month I give up all that I dream of doing and being ever! And you say self-self’s all I ever think of. Why, listen, if self is what I thought of, Mother, I’d be where he is--gone! As far as the system of transportation reaches! Don’t grab at me, Mother! I’m going to the movies! I’m going to opium dens! Yes, opium dens, dens of vice and criminals’ hangouts, Mother. I’ve joined the Hogan gang, I’m a hired assassin, I carry a tommy-gun in a violin case! They call me Killer, Killer Wingfield, I’m leading a double-life, a simple, honest warehouse worker by day, by night a dynamic czar of the underworld, Mother. I go to gambling casinos, I spin away fortunes on the roulette table! I wear a patch over one eye and a false mustache, sometimes I put on green whiskers. On those occasions they call me--El Diablo! Oh, I could tell you things to make you sleepless! My enemies plan to dynamite this place. They’re going to blow us all sky-high some night! I’ll be glad, very happy, and so will you! You’ll go up, up on a broomstick, over blue Mountain with seventeen gentlemen callers! You ugly--babbling old--witch.........
MALE RATTLE IN THE DASH by Peter Anderson Two young men travel west in an old car sharing stories and adventures. BRANDON: I ever tell you about the time my old man ran into our house? I was five or six and I was upstairs in bed and my mother was reading me this bedtime story when we hear this crash, sounds like thunder only it come from downstairs. My mother tells me to stay in bed and goes down to see what’s up. She doesn’t come back for a while so I tiptoe down the stairs and right there in the living room is the old man’s Thunderbird. It’s half inside and half outside and there’s bricks all over and this perfect half-circle knocked out of the wall. And there’s the T-bird sitting in the middle of the living room with the stars shining through. And this big crowd of neighbours in pajamas and housecoats standing around outside staring into our house. Nobody was talking. They were staring in at me and my mom and the T-bird in the living room. My old man was sitting there behind the steering wheel with this stunned kind of look on his face like he couldn’t believe it. I thought it was the most terrific thing he’d ever done.
MALE YOU’RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN by Clark Gesner Charlie Brown explains why he hates lunch time. CHARLIE BROWN: I think lunch time is about the worst time of the day for me. Always having to sit here alone. Of course, sometimes mornings aren’t so pleasant, either--waking up and wondering if anyone would really miss me if I never got out of bed. Then there’s the night, too -lying there and thinking about all the stupid things I’ve done during the day. And all those hours in between--when I do all those stupid things. Well, lunch time is among the worst time of the day for me. Well, I guess I’d better see what I’ve got. Peanut butter. Some psychiatrists say that people who eat peanut butter sandwiches are lonely. I guess they’re right. And if you’re really lonely, the peanut butter sticks to the roof of your mouth. Boy, the PTA sure did a good job of painting these benches. There’s that cute little redheaded girl eating her lunch over there. I wonder what she’d do if I went over and asked her if I could sit and have lunch with her. She’d probably laugh right in my face. It’s hard on a face when it get laughed in. There’s an empty place next to her on the bench. There’s no reason why I couldn’t just go over and sit there. I could do that right now. All I have to do is stand up. I’m standing up. I’m sitting down. I’m a coward. I’m so much of a coward she wouldn’t even think of looking at me. Why shouldn’t she look at me? Is she so great and am I so small that she couldn’t spare one little moment just to ... She’s looking at me. She’s looking at me.
MALE BILLY BISHOP GOES TO WAR by John Gray & Eric Peterson Canada’s greatest pilot hero in War 1 reveals the disorganization in the years of the war. BILLY BISHOP: It was a grim situation. But we didn’t know how grim it could get until we saw the RE-7 ... the Reconnaissance Experimental Number Seven. Our new plane. What you saw was this mound of cables and wires, with a thousand pounds of equipment hanging off it. Four machine guns, a five-hundred pound bomb, for goodness sake. Reconnaissance equipment, cameras ... Roger Neville - that’s my pilot - he and I are ordered into the thing to take it up. Of course, it doesn’t get off the ground. Anyone could see that. We thought, fine, good riddance. But the officers go into a huddle. (Imitating the Officers.) Mmmmmmm? What do you think we should do? Take the bomb off? Take the bomb off! So we take the bomb off and try it again. This time, the thing sort of flops down the runway like a crippled duck. Finally, by taking everything off but one machine gun, the thing sort of flopped itself into the air and chugged along. It was a pig! We were all scared stiff of it. So they put us on active duty ... as bombers! They gave us two bombs each, told us to fly over Hunland and drop them on somebody. but in order to accommodate for the weight of the bombs, they took our machine guns away! (As if writing or reciting a letter.) Dearest Margaret. We are dropping bombs on the enemy from unarmed machines. It is exciting work. It’s hard to keep your confidence in a war when you don’t have a gun. Somehow we get back in one piece and we start joking around and inspecting the machine for bullet and shrapnel damage. You’re so thankful not to be dead. Then I go back to the barracks and lie down. A kind of terrible loneliness comes over me. It’s like waiting for the firing squad. It makes you want to cry, you feel so frightened and so alone. I think all of us who aren’t dead think these things. Thinking of you constantly, I remain ...
