Monologue Monday - Where's My Money by John Patrick Shanley

Not much to talk about, at least not at the moment. But, I didn't want to go another week without a monologue for a Monday, so here's one that I had sitting around by John Patrick Shanley from his play Where's My Money. You can find this play in his book Dirty Story and Other Plays. It's pretty solid.

So...what follows is a monologue about manhood. I generally even toss that word IN at the beginning of the monologue to clarify.

(Manhood.) It's a job. Done right, it's a tiring job. And women have a lot to do with what that job entails. Sure, women create. The womb. We all acknowledge the womb. But there's another side. And it's not pretty. There's a Hindu deity in India named Kali. The god of destruction. It's a woman. She's got a bloody sword and an appetite for decapitation. In the West, we call her "The Devouring Mother." Creation, destruction. Every woman has these two sides to her, and every man must deal with these two sides. Creation, destruction. You gotta orient a woman in such a way so as to be facing her creative parts. You want the creative parts. The destructive parts - you want those to be facing away. Towards a wall or an enemy or something. Women consume, and they must be directed what to consume, or they may identify you as lunch. You've gotta point them. Like you would a bazooka. Like you would a chainsaw. You wouldn't hold a chainsaw by the chain. Let me pull it together another way. Monogamy is like a forty watt bulb. It works, but it's not enough. Women used to come with goats and textiles. When they got upset, they worked on their textiles and they yelled at their goats. Now they look around, no goats, no textiles. All there is is some schmuck trying to read his newspaper. All right, all right, here it is boiled down to nothing. Don't bet the farm, Henry. That's what I'm trying to say. Cause if a woman smells that you're betting the farm on her, you're gonna lose the farm.