So as I explained on an earlier date that I was going to post monologues and the unknown more on the next page which is what I've done :D (Whoop Whoop!) I'm starting with one and I will put them all on the home page and the monologue page to make it easy to refer to if you want to check up on what is new.
So enjoy ;D...
Ooohhh hang on quick news update my very posh friend whom I met at the National Youth Theatre audition has informed me of a summer school course at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland which I'm definitely applying for as a) It will give me something to look forward to over summer b) no audition process just first come first served c) It is one of the drama schools that I want to apply for so it will be a good (but expensive) chance to check it out.
+ My posh friend is also doing it so it will be an excellent bonding experience.
Now just read the blooming monologue you! :P
Map of the Heart by William Nicholson
Basic synopsis: Dr Mary Hanlon is giving a talk to a hall of doctors. Dr Albie Steadmen is full of enthusiasm to accompany her to Sudan for charitable work, the two become lovers. Albie is captured and taken hostage, leaving his lover and wife to explore their feelings about him.
Mary is an intense woman in early thirties. She speaks with conviction and enthusiasm when presenting this speech.
Mary - This is not an appeal for money. It's an appeal for lives. I'm not here to ask you for charity, or to make you feel guilty. I'm here to ask you one simple question: are you leading the life you want to lead? If your answer is yes, then what I have to say won't be of any interest to you. You might as well leave now. I won't mind. (Pausing to see if anyone leaves.) No one ever does leave. I used to think that meant that everyone was eager to change their lives, but once, after I gave a talk in Hammersmith, a junior registrar came up to me and thanked me warmly, and when I said "Will you be joining us in the camps?" he said no, he just felt so much better knowing there was somewhere worse than Charing Cross Hospital. I work in a field hospital in a large refugee camp near a town called Juba, in the south of Sudan. The population of the camp is divided crudely into three. One third is dying of starvation. Another third is seriously malnourished and dying of infectious diseases: dysentary, cholera, typhoid. The final third is reasonably healthy, and killing each other in a civil war. So you won't be surprised to hear that the question I'm most often asked is, why bother? You read the papers. This year the drought is the worst ever, the disaster the largest ever. Ten million facing starvation; fifteen million. It's true, and at the same time, it's too much. The sheer scale of the tragedy makes people block their ears and shut their eyes. What can I say? That I'm bringing the suffering to an end? I wish I was. That I'm saving people's lives? A few, perhaps, but what for? For the war? For the famine? The truth is I haven't got an answer. It's just become my work. It's what I do. But let me ask you the same question about your life? Wh do you bother? Are you leading the life you want to lead? When it's all over, will you look back and say,that wasn't what I wanted to do at all?... That's not how it is for me. For five years now I've known the greatest freedom life has to offer. If I die tomorrow, I'll be able to say, I lived the life I wanted to live. Will you?
My notes - This piece is one of the possibilities for my Diploma, for which I have a theme Temptation for (I know that this does not fit in with the normal view on temptation but...) since this piece reflects the desire in humans to do something good, that there is a want for being the "good guy" that I personally feel a strong attachment to. Although it is a monologue for a woman it can so easily be adapted for a man (depending on where it is being used.)
If you do want to preform this for something then I strongly recommend that you read the play and research the role of a field doctor, the red cross would be a good place to start, this is to really get a sense of the dangers there medics are putting themselves into to help others.
Hope you enjoyed it,
Terri ;D
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