Monologues for the "Romantic Lead" type
Classic monologues matched to the "Romantic Lead" acting type.
16 monologues
Juliet
Romeo and Juliet · William Shakespeare
«Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, Towards Phoebus' lodging: such a wagoner As Phaethon would whip you to…»
'Gallop apace…' — the impatience of young love: pure ardour and longing.
Viola
Twelfth Night · William Shakespeare
«I left no ring with her: what means this lady? Fortune forbid my outside have not charm'd her! She made good…»
'I left no ring with her…' — realising she's been fallen for, and her own tangle: wit, humour, charm.
Christy Mahon
The Playboy of the Western World · J. M. Synge
«It's little you'll think if my love's a poacher's, or an earl's itself, when you'll feel my two hands…»
A lyrical wooing of Pegeen: musical speech, charm and Irish lilt — material for organic rhythm.
Beatrice
Much Ado About Nothing · William Shakespeare
«What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true? Stand I condemn'd for pride and scorn so much? Contempt,…»
A short verse soliloquy — the witty sparrer caught by real feeling; play the proud mask cracking into tenderness.
Cleopatra
Antony and Cleopatra · William Shakespeare
«I dream'd there was an Emperor Antony: O, such another sleep, that I might see But such another man! His face…»
Take it for the apotheosis of love and grief: Cleopatra makes the dead Antony into a cosmic myth — play it on the edge of ecstasy and despair.
Domitius Enobarbus
Antony and Cleopatra · William Shakespeare
«I will tell you. The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten…»
The famous 'barge' description of Cleopatra: sensual word-painting — play a storyteller intoxicated by the very thing he describes.
Duke Orsino
Twelfth Night · William Shakespeare
«If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and…»
The famous opening on love as appetite — play the indulgent melancholy, not just pretty verse.
Olivia
Twelfth Night · William Shakespeare
«'What is your parentage?' 'Above my fortunes, yet my state is well: I am a gentleman.' I'll be sworn thou…»
Olivia catches herself falling in love at first sight — play the surprise and surrender to the feeling.
Gwendolen
The Importance of Being Earnest · Oscar Wilde
«Yes, I am quite well aware of the fact. And I often wish that in public, at any rate, you had been more…»
A love declaration aimed at the name 'Ernest': earnest ardour on an absurd premise—comedy mined from total sincerity.
Cecily
The Importance of Being Earnest · Oscar Wilde
«Well, ever since dear Uncle Jack first confessed to us that he had a younger brother who was very wicked and…»
Cecily recounts an engagement she invented entirely: dreamy naivety delivered as established fact—pure ingénue comedy.
Duchess
The Duchess of Malfi · John Webster
«The misery of us that are born great! We are forc'd to woo, because none dare woo us; And as a tyrant doubles…»
A high-born widow woos her own steward — play it as courage, tenderness and vulnerability at once, never coy.
Miranda
The Tempest · William Shakespeare
«I do not know One of my sex; no woman's face remember, Save, from my glass, mine own; nor have I seen More…»
The innocent heroine confesses love for the first time — chaste, candid, without coquetry.
Julia
Two Gentlemen of Verona · William Shakespeare
«Nay, would I were so anger'd with the same! O hateful hands, to tear such loving words! Injurious wasps, to…»
Having torn up Proteus's love letter in pique, she instantly repents and tenderly gathers the scraps bearing his name — a play of shame, love and wilful pride.
Valentine
Two Gentlemen of Verona · William Shakespeare
«And why not death rather than living torment? To die is to be banish'd from myself; And Silvia is myself:…»
Banished by the Duke, he equates his very life with Silvia: to be parted from her is death itself. A lyrical lament of exile.
Helena
A Midsummer Night's Dream · William Shakespeare
«How happy some o'er other some can be! Through Athens I am thought as fair as she. But what of that?…»
Play the thought being born in real time, not a complaint: avoid self-pity, find the self-irony and the thrill of the moment her bad idea suddenly feels brilliant.
Lydia Languish
The Rivals · Richard Brinsley Sheridan
«Why, is it not provoking? when I thought we were coming to the prettiest distress imaginable, to find myself…»
A perfect comic ingenue piece: play her despair absolutely sincerely — the joke is that her tragedy is getting everything she should want; don't wink at the audience.