MONOLOGUE - The Most Frightening Wonderful Thing

The Most Frightening Wonderful Thing

Comedic male monologue from the play Goodbye Charles

by Gabriel Davis

(Monologist enters a restaurant.  He is wearing climbing gear - looks like he came directly from a mountain.  The woman he is speaking to, Barbara, is in the middle of a date)

I’m sorry to interrupt your date, Barbara. Hi buddy, how’s your date with my girlfriend going so far? Good? I asked Trish. She told me you were here You don’t mind if I sit down, do you? Thanks. Listen, honey...I can explain my absence for the last three months, really. I can. See. You’re the most beautiful woman I have ever known. And that can be a little...scary. Look at this guy, he looks petrified. You know how three months ago, I kinda ran out on you at dinner? Of course you do. I wasn’t being rude, I was being scared shitless. See, I wanted to, kinda tell you something extremely important. But I choked. Big time.

I went home and, I cried, I wept uncontrollably, Barbara. Now that’s not like me, I’m not a weeper. But there I am, reduced to whimpers, because I don’t have the guts to tell you that I want you to ... so I turn on the TV, it happens there’s this documentary about these guys who climbed mount Everest. So, I start thinking how brave these guys are, and why can’t I be more like them.

I mean those mountain men have stared death in the face, no way they would have been so anxious to ask if you ... See, then it occurred to me: I should climb Everest. If I climb Everest, little things like this, they’ll be a cake walk. I know, I shoulda told you. But I just...went.

At the top, it’s breathtaking. You can see what seems endlessly in every direction, and there’s this sense of being a God. I even made Gus call me Zeus. Then, staring out over my kingdom, I had this incredible, life altering revelation: There is nothing on earth more frightening, than a beautiful woman.

I have looked death in the face Barb. Just like those guys in the documentary. And I have to say. Looking you in the face. Asking you what I’m about to... It’s still harder. Barb, Barbara my dear, my love. Will you marry me?

The plot of my monologue takes place in a restaurant, where a man (the name is not mentioned) is attempting to bring his girlfriend, Barbara, back into his arms. Before the monologue events happen, the boyfriend messed up big time on his date, and he immediately ran away. In order for me to play my character, I would have to act like I'm prepared of what to tell my girlfriend,  as if it is a serious situation, and also not only I have to read the monologue, I would have to hear myself talking and notice when to change the tone in my voice, in order for the performance to be successful and to think of my objective. During the lesson, my teacher has given me feedback on my monologue; the feedback was to explore more actions I could do in my monologue, and to ask my mother how to drink wine.