Please note: I'm happy to allow free use of the following monologues and scenes from my plays. If you choose to perform them in any capacity, all I ask is that you provide credit to the playwright, film it, and email the file to me at handfulproductions@icloud.com. Your work will be a great help to me as a writer moving forward.
Excerpts from 'The Awakening' by Lara E. Morton (c) 2011, based on the classic American novel by Kate O'Flaherty Chopin, 1899
The Awakening Act I, Scene 9 Robert & Edna (romantic, sexual tension)
ROBERT
Then I'll take you some night in the pirogue when the moon shines. Maybe your Gulf spirit will whisper to you in which of these islands the treasures are hidden-direct you to the very spot, perhaps.
EDNA
And in a day we should be rich! I'd give it all to you, the pirate gold and every bit of treasure we could dig up. I think that you would know how to spend it. Pirate gold isn't a thing to be hoarded or utilized. It is something to squander and throw to the four winds, for the fun of seeing the golden specks fly!
ROBERT(pressing her hand, flushed)
We'd share it, and scatter it together.
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The Awakening Act I, Scene 10 (group scene with both Chekovian-style comedy and strong dramatic tension, 9 characters)
VICTOR/FARIVAL/ADELE
Robert is going to Mexico!
Edna sets down her spoon and looks about her bewildered. She looks across at Robert, who lifts his eyebrows with the pretext of a smile as he returns her glance. He is embarrassed and uneasy.
EDNA (asking everybody in general, as if Robert is not there to answer for himself)
When is he going?
THE DINERS
Tonight!.... This very evening!...... Did you ever!...... What possesses him.....
EDNA
Impossible! How can a person start off from Grand Isle to Mexico at a moment's notice, as if he were going over the Klein's or to the wharf or down to the beach? ROBERT (in an excited and irritable tone, with 'the air of a man defending himself against a swarm of stinging insects') I said all along I was going to Mexico; I've been saying so for years! THE
DINERS
Imagine! Leaving his family just like that!.... No warning whatsoever!.... Just when his mother needs him here..... Young people today! They do whatever pleases them. They have no regard for others!........ What's in Mexico, anyway?
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The Awakening (Edna's Act II Soliloquy; evocative, moody, passionate)
EDNA
There are days when I am very happy, though I don't know why. Happy to be alive and breathing, when my being seems to be one with the sunlight, the color, the odors, the luxuriant warmth of some perfect Southern day. It is during such a day when I like to wander alone in strange and unfamiliar places. I've discovered many a sunny, sleepy corner, fashioned to dream in. And there are days when I am unhappy, though I don't know why, when it does not seem worthwhile to be glad or sorry, to be alive or dead; when life appears to be a grotesque pandemonium and humanity like worms struggling blindly toward inevitable annihilation. I cannot even paint on such a day, nor weave fancies to stir my pulse and warm my blood.
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The Awakening (Act II, Scene 1; Leonce, Edna, Dr. Mandalet, Joe; strong dramatic tension)
EDNA
I feel like painting. Perhaps I shan't always feel like it.
LEONCE
Then in God's name paint! But don't let the family go to the devil! There's Madame Ratignolle; because she keeps up her music, she doesn't let everything else go to chaos. And she's more of a musician than you are a painter.
EDNA
She isn't a musician, and I'm not a painter. It isn't on account of painting that I let things go.
LEONCE
On account of what then?
EDNA
Oh! I don't know-let me alone; you bother me.