David Chiu

At 2am Sunday morning I realized that I needed to prepare a monologue for class since I wasn’t able to contact my acting partner for rehearsal last week. I could have just performed the “Boiler Room” monologue that I’ve grown fond of, but I decided to find another piece. So i scoured the internet for about an hour and ended up finding a monologue from the play “Dinner With Friends”. I’ve seen the movie adaptation and really liked it so I decided that this was the piece I would perform in class in 6 hours. So I proceeded to memorize the piece and was able to commit 90% of it to memory in bits and pieces. It was 4am and I reminded myself that acting is less about the words and more about the actions, circumstance, objective and intention. So I went to bed confident that I could pull it off in class. 9am rolls around and I’m in class first up to perform my new monologue. Lisa loved it - the monologue that is. My performance, on the other hand was natural and relaxed but lacked an objective and urgency. She told me to sit down and think about my objective, the stakes, my relationship to the characters in the monologue, then try it again after a few scenes. The second time around was much better but she said that my performance was not completely realized. Overall, she thought it was a great monologue for me and that I should definitely work on it and bring it back to class. Personally I was proud of myself for being able to memorize the piece and bring in a half decent performance within a very short amount of time.

Here’s the monologue I performed:

“I don’t know about you, but I’m at the point in my life where I want to enjoy myself. I don’t want to go through life hoping I’m gonna get lucky with my own wife. You know? You go to bed and you think you’re gonna have sex and then you say something, some kind of offhanded remark of no consequence whatsoever, and it pisses her off and the mood is gone and it’s lights out and that’s it. I must’ve masturbated more then any married man in history.

I’m not asking for it twenty-four hours a day, all I’m asking for is a little affection.

No, Gabe, there were no other women. There were opportunities, though. I mean, when you’re out of town as much as I am. You’re lonely, you’re far from home, it doesn’t seem like you’re living in real time. I’d be in a hotel bar and strike up a conversation with a female colleague, or some divorcee with big hair, and I’d make them laugh and they’d look pretty and I’d feel competent again, you know?, and think, gee maybe I am still clever and attractive after all. There’d be that electricity in the air, that kind of buzz I hadn’t felt since college, remember?, when a single move, and move at all, and there’d be sex? But I’d get scared and say goodnight and go back to my room and call Beth out of guilt, or hope, and get some shit about something I neglected to do or did badly. Well, by the time I met Nancy — she made me feel good from the first time I talked to her on the phone — I hadn’t even laid eyes on her yet — she booked all my travel.

She had this great laugh and this flirty sense of humor, and she said, “We’ve been talking for weeks, I want to meet you already!” And I began to think, Why the hell not? What am I saving myself for? This hypercritical woman waiting for me back home? Who looks at me with withering disappointment. All the time. This accusatory, how-could-you-be-so-thoughtless look. So, on one hand, there’s this delightful women who makes me feel worthwhile and there’s this other women, my wife, who makes me feel like shit. Who would you choose?”