Shakespeare monologue

[dr_whom]

Here's the monologue I just performed at the Underground Shakespeare Company's Shakespeare Cafe, directed by midnight_sidhe.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? Out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. The world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. To die: to sleep;
No more; methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep
no more! Macbeth does murder sleep'! To die;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands:
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed. What's in a name?
For if you tickle us, do we not laugh?
and if you poison us, do we not die?
and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
When he himself might his quietus make
With this, a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York.
The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. Enough; no more:
'Tis not so sweet now as it was before
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I'll drown my book. O fool, I shall go mad!
The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars,
but in ourselves, that we are underlings.
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of acting. The rest is silence.

It was a lot of fun to write, and it seems to have gone over pretty well with the audience too.

Comments

[midnight-sidhe.livejournal.com]

It went very well indeed. That was definitely the best you'd ever performed it, and the last few times we rehearsed, it was already pretty good.

[dr_whom]

Note to self: In a performance on 22 August 2015, aside from other minor edits, I changed line 14 to "We few, we happy few, we are such stuff" and I think it flowed a lot better that way.