Thursday, October 23, 2008

Blue Window, Inherit The Wind (Listening to: I'm Good, I'm Gone, Lykke Li)

I'm in the advanced acting class at my school and I also do speech. This year I have a monologue for acting class and a scene in speech, and I figured I'd just put them out there because they're pretty boss if I do say so myself.

Blue Window, my monologue:
I used to be married to a dentist. We bought a big apartment on East 71st Street. We'd been married about three months. I was standing by the window. It was late afternoon. Everything was blue, as blue as it can be before it gets black.
And Marty said, come out on the terrace. I said, I don't have any clothes on. And he brought me this little robe and we walked out on the terrace. We'd only lived there two months. And he kissed me, and I put my head back to look up at the sky. Our reflections were in the glass. And I put my head back - we lived on the seventh floor, there was another one above us - and we leaned, he leaned, I set my back against the rail...and it just...we were gone. We were over. I saw our reflections leave the window. And I didn't black out. I thought, very clearly, this is bad. This is real. And it's true, you see everything pass before your eyes. Everything. Slowly, like a dream. And Marty was...climbing up me...and screaming...and we turned over once...and we went through an awning, which saved my life. And I broke every bone in my face. I have a completely new face. My teeth were all shattered, these are all caps.
I was in traction for ten months. And Tom came to see me every week, every day sometimes. Marty's family. We sued the building. I mean, they never even attached it to the wall. It wasn't even attached. It was just a rail, a loose rail. There was another one on another floor, the same thing could have happened. I landed on him. I killed him. I can't - it's seven years. I can't have anybody hold me. I can't ever be held.

Inherit the Wind, my scene:
Rachel: Mr. Drummond, you've got to call the whole thing off. It's not too late. Bert knows he did wrong. He didn't mean to, and he's sorry. Now why can't he just stand up and say to everybody I did wrong, I broke a law, I admit it. I won't do it again. Then they'd stop all this fuss, and - everything would be like it was.
Drummond: Who are you.
Rachel: I'm a friend of Bert's.
Drummond: How about it boy, getting cold feet?
Rachel: Bert knows he's wrong, don't you Bert?
Drummond: Don't prompt the witness.
Bert: What do you think, Mr. Drummond?
Drummond: I'm here. That tells you what I think. Well, what's the verdict, Bert?
Bert: No sir, I'm not gonna quit.
Rachel: Bert!
Bert: It wouldn't do any good now anyhow. If you'll stick by me, Rache, well - we can fight it out.
Rachel: I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do.
Bert: What's the matter Rache?
Rachel: I don't want to do it, Bert, but Mr. Brady says...They want me to testify against you.
Bert: You c- you can't. Rache, some of the things I've talked to you about are things you just say to your own heart. If you get up on the stand and say those things out loud...don't you understand? The words I've said to you, softly, in the dark, just trying to figure out what the stars are for or what be on the backside of the moon...they were questions, Rache. I was just asking questions. If you repeat those things on the witness stand, Brady'll make 'em sound like answers. And they'll crucify me.
Drummond: What's your name. Rachel what?
Rachel: Rachel Brown. Can they make me testify?
Drummond: I'm afraid so. It would be nice if nobody ever had to make anybody do anything, but...
Rachel: I remember feeling this way when I was a little girl. I would wake up at night, terrified of the dark. I'd think sometimes that my bed was on the ceiling, and the whole house was upside down, and if I didn't hang onto my matress I'd fall, outward, into the stars. I wanted to run to my father and have him tell me I was safe, that everything would be alright. But I was always more frightened of him than I was of falling. It's the same way now.
Random Court Official: Will Miss Rachel Brown come forward please?
Brady: Miss Brown, you are a teacher at the Hillsboro Consolidated School?
Rachel: Yes.
Brady: So you have had ample time to know the defendant, Mr. Cates, professionally.
Rachel: Yes.
Brady: Is Mr. Cates a member of the spiritual community to which you belong. Do you and Mr. Cates attend the same church?
Rachel: Not anymore. Bert dropped out two summers ago.
Brady: Why?
Rachel: It was what happened with the little Stebbins boy.
Brady: Would you tell us about that please?
Rachel: The boy was eleven years old and he went swimming in the river, and got a cramp, and drowned. Bert felt awful about it. He lived right next door and Tommy Stebbins used to come over to the boarding house to look through Bert's microscope. Bert said the boy had a quick mind and he might even be a scientist when he grew up. At the funeral, Pa preached that Tommy didn't die in a state of grace, since his folks had never had him baptized.
Bert: Tell them what your father really said, that Tommy's soul was damned, writhing in hellfire! Religion's supposed to comfort people, isn't it? Not frighten them to death!
Brady: I request that the defendant's remarks be stricken from the record. But how can we strike this young man's bigoted opinions from the memory of this community? Now my dear, will you please tell us some more of Mr. Cates's opinions on the subject of religion? Will you merely repeat, in your own words, some of the conversations you had with the defendant?
Rachel: I don't remember exactly -
Brady: What you told me the other day. That presumably humerous remark Mr. Cates made about the heavenly father.
Rachel: Bert said...
Brady: Go on, my dear.
Rachel: I can't - Bert was just talking about some of the things he had read. He...he...
Brady: Were you shocked when he told you these things? Describe to the court your innermost feelings when Bertram Cates said to you: God did not create man! Man created God!
Rachel: Bert didn't say that! He was just joking. What he said was: God created man in his own image, and man, being a gentleman, returned the favor.
Brady: Go on my dear, tell us some more. What did he say to you about the holy state of matrimony? Did he compare it with the breeding of animals?
Rachel: No, he didn't say that - He didn't mean that. That's not what I told you. All he said was- I don't understand it. What I do understand, I don't like. I don't want to think that men come from apes and monkeys. But I think that's beside the point. You see I haven't really thought very much. I was always afraid of what I might think - so it seemed safer not to think at all. But now I know. A thought is like a child inside our body. It has to be born. If it dies inside you, part of you dies, too! Maybe what Mr. Darwin wrote is bad. I don't know. Bad or good, it doesn't make any difference. The ideas have to come out - like children. Some of 'em healthy as a bean plant, some sickly. I think the sickly ideas die mostly, don't you, Bert?



Note: Inherit the Wind has been cut a lot...don't think this is the original text.

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