Monologues are a b****. They are no fun to do. No questionable “fun” to coach – – simply no fun. They are, however, a necessary evil of this business. How in the world would you be able to get through hundreds of auditionees in anything less then a week if you didn’t cut down the actor’s presentation to just a moment or two. I have been coaching many, many of these monologues and find myself always questioning my skills after a coaching session. I worry that I have become so lecture-like that I have taught a good lesson, but done nothing to help the student tangibly improve the monologue. On the opposite hand, worry that I have done so much game playing that the actor had “fun” with the coaching section, but gained little to make the monologue improve trhe next time.
I even have flashes of how to improve this process when I am asleep and dreaming. It happened again tonight. I felt like there was some question that I was not asking them at that crucial first shopping for the monologue and running it through its first few steps. The question – ever so simple now in daylight – sounded oh, so profound last night: “What about YOU are you showcasing with the choice of this particular monologue?” I am thinking that successful actors will have a clear passionate response to this question – – I am also thinking that actors too young to know themselves – will genuinely be unable to answer this question. They will not know themselves or have enough AWARENESS to add anything more to the dialogue then, “I just like it.” or “It is really, funny, sad, scary, etc.”
But if they don’t know what of them is being showcased in the monologue – I do not think they will have success. They will either need to do more soul searching, find another monologue – or, frankly, just wait until they have more ownership of who and what they are before real success as an actor is possible. Monologues are a B****.