Hello again, sorry about the wait! I’m still here don’t worry. This one’s a group piece for 5 actors with speaking parts, although it works well with a number of non-speaking actors to play the other party guests. Enjoy!

Bridget Jones is a single 30 something year old with no life and a hangover and the last thing she wants to be doing is attending her mother’s friend Una’s new years party.

(Bridget enters the party looking dishevelled and unenthusiastic)

Una: Bridget! (hugs her exaggeratedly) We’d almost given you up for lost! Happy New Year sweetheart, we were just about to start without you.

Bridget: Sorry. I got lost.

Una: Lost? Durrr! What are we going to do with you? Come on in! (shouting into the rest of the party) She got lost, everyone!

Geoffrey: Bridget! Happy New Year! Which junction did you come off at?

Bridget: Junction nineteen, but there was a diversion-

Geoffrey: Junction nineteen! Una, she came off at Junction nineteen! You’ve added an hour to your journey before you even started. Come on, let’s get you a drink. How’s your love-life?

Bridget: (to audience) Oh God.

Geoffrey: Well?

Bridget: Hmm? Ah, erm…ye…well…

Una: Well?

(At this point the entire party is surrounding them, listening intently to Bridget)

Bridget: My love-life is…fine.

(long pause)

Geoffrey: So you still haven’t got a feller!

(Everyone laughs except Bridget and friendly chatter starts up again)

Una: Bridget!

Geoffrey: What are we going to do with you!

Una: You career girls!

Geoffrey: I don’t know!

Una: Can’t put it off for ever, you know.

Geoffrey: Tick tock tick tock.

Una: How does a woman manage to get to your age without being married?

(More laughter and Bridget’s dad swoops in and takes her away from the crowd)

Bridget’s Dad: Thank the lord you’re finally here Bridget. Your mother has the entire Northamptonshire constabulary poised to comb the county with toothbrushes for your dismembered remains. Come and demonstrate your presence so I can start enjoying myself.

Una: Now, now Bridget you’re not getting away so easily! (pinches Bridget’s cheeks) Come along and meet Mark. (sing song voice) Mark! I’ve got someone nice for you to meet. (winks at Bridget) Mark, this is Colin and Pam’s daughter, Bridget. Bridget works in publishing, don’t you Bridget?

Bridget: Yes. Yes I do.

Una: Well, I’ll leave you two young people together. Durr! I  expect you’re sick to death of us old fuddy-duddies.

Mark: (awkwardly) Not at all.

(awkward silence)

Mark: Um. Are you reading any, ah…Have you read any good books lately?

Bridget: (obviously lying) Backlash, actually, by Susan Faludi.

Mark: Ah. Really? I read that when it first came out. Didn’t you find there was rather a lot of special pleading?

Bridget: Oh, well, not too much…um…Have you been staying with your parents over New Year?

Mark: Yes. You too?

Bridget: Yes. No. I was at a party in London last night. Bit hungover actually. But then I do think New Years resolutions can’t technically be expected to begin on New Years Day, don’t you? Since, because it’s an extension of New Years Eve, smokers are already on a smoking roll and can’t be expected to stop abruptly on the stroke of midnight with so much nicotine in the system. Also dieting on New Years Day isn’t a good idea as you can’t eat rationally but really need to be free to consume whatever is necessary, moment by moment, in order to ease your hangover. I think it would be much more sensible if resolutions began generally on January the second.

(silence)

Mark: Maybe you should get something to eat. (exits)

Context: Mrs McNab is a cleaner, set to the task of relentlessly cleaning the deserted home of the Ramseys, who have since passed away. This character is sentimental and thoughtful, but at the same time she is suppressing a great deal of dissatisfaction with her boring, lonely life. This often expresses itself in the form of jealousy and anger.

Mrs McNab: (Entering the house) Stepping into this house, I feel as if I have stumbled into some conversation in which I am unwelcome, and everyone has hushed suddenly to accommodate me. And why? There is no-one here but me, tearing this veil of tranquility with my too loud steps and unfamiliar voice, relentlessly cleaning this empty shell of a home knowing that I will never again hear Mrs Ramsey’s grateful voice.

“What would this home be without you?” she would say, when no-one else would so much as acknowledge my flitting, unceasing presence. “Ay, but with me alone it would be lifeless,” I would tell her, “It’s spirit lies in you, Mrs Ramsey.” And then I would hear her laughter fade away down the corridor, until the day it faded for good.

Even now it pains me to imagine old Mr Ramsey lurching along this dark passage, arms outstretched, calling her name. A ghost of a man he was in the end, his long, square fingers clutching at the air but always, always remaining empty.

Still I find reminders of families that once were, small fossils they have shed that now lie tarnished, cracked. A blue raincoat, collecting dust, when I remember how once small hands were busy with hooks and buttons. This looking glass once held a fresh young face, this door once opened to make way for rushing, tumbling children.

And will you fade, memories? Will you perish, one day, with the mortality of a person? Will new experiences weave their way into your history and twist you and change you, like a flower reflected in water? I can almost hear these very walls whispering their reply: “Never, never. We remain.”

[For a shorter piece, end here]

(picking up a flamboyant ballgown) Though some memories deserve to be left behind. How can I forget Prue Ramsey and her precious, sequinned ballgown? No-one deserved happiness more, people said. The spitting image of her mother, they would coo. And leaning on her father’s arm, taking a good man of service in marriage, that just completed the picture didn’t it? What, people asked, could have been more fitting? And, they added, since it could not be ignored, how beautiful she looked! Perfect Prue, her looks just made personality unnecessary didn’t they? No-one cared to get to know her, because how could such a radiant face mask a flawed character?

But I knew her. I saw her in ways even her own mother was blind to. I saw her lying, cheating and all the while smiling that innocent smile. (gradually building up emotion) Oh that smile would melt a man’s heart like butter, oh yes, she would melt it into a mass of bloody, sticky, pungent, fleshy mush that she could shape however she pleased. Fortune favours the beautiful, they say, but blaming it on fortune won’t do. It’s people who favour the beautiful, it’s us!

(pulling on the dress and examining herself in the mirror, miming holding a bouquet of flowers and walking down an altar, humming “Here Comes The Bride”) No-one is as beautiful as the bride on her special day. (smiling) No-one. (coming out of her daydream) Does anyone know how much I would have liked to have been married? Does anyone care? (falling to her knees in tears) Is anybody listening?

The mystics, the visionaries, I used to see them walking the beach, maybe stirring a puddle, looking at a stone and asking themselves “What am I?” “What is this?”. And I, looking on, would never know that they had found an answer, so that they were warm in the frost and had comfort in the desert. And I, looking on, would laugh at the expense of that same hippy and continue to drink and gossip as before.

Only now have I learned. Only now do I realise that those who question, those curious few, are the ones who squeeze every drop out of life until there is nothing left.

I will lie awake in my coffin wishing and wishing that things were different. That I had been beautiful, that I had been thoughtful, that I had found answers to all my questions. And still the memories in this house will remain, startlingly delicate and unforgiving. They remain to tell a story of a family who left this world with no regrets. But what remains to tell of me?

 

-Virginia Woolf, adapted by me, The Hopeless Romantic

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Hope you find a way to use this script! Even just trying it out by yourself and really getting into role as Mrs McNab feels so freeing. I love Virginia Woolf and I have tried to imitate and preserve her “stream of consciousness” style, but I didn’t want it to get too cluttered so I’m really sorry, I know I haven’t properly reflected her style of writing.

The Hopeless Romantic xxx

 

Stranger, I don’t know why you’re here, what you’re searching for in my little blog, but you may’ve just stumbled on something that will heal you. Or you’ve just found some great audition pieces, but either way this blog is where I post my original theatre scripts for you to use as you wish (for free!).

I post monologues, duologues and group pieces every couple of weeks or so, the reason why I don’t have a secure schedule is because I write these scripts based on the last book I finished. So every time I finish a book, I write a script and post it here for y’all to use/read/ignore. Alsoooo I always take requests for any topics, characters, situations etc. that you want me to write about in case you need a specific script for something.

I’m currently working on a FULL PLAY as well for any big productions you’re planning so keep checking back here to see if anything’s popped up. It’s completely original (i.e. not based on any books) and I’m hoping it’ll be useful for someone somewhere. I’m not going to be giving too many spoilers (unless you really push me) but it should be interesting.

So I hope you’ll find what you’re looking for in my scripts, try them out! Print them, read them out loud, feel the passion, connect to the emotions, experience the freedom of becoming someone else. It’s incredible what acting can do for a person’s mental health.

Be inspired! Discover the power of theatre!

The Hopeless Romantic xxx