First Monologue: 2004.11.02

I've been working on a lot of monologues over the last year and a half, and now with a monologue coach, Glenn Alterman. Over that time, I've identified at least one feature that every good monologue has (and Shakespeare's soliloquies seems to fit this to a tee): a 3-part structure, like a play, i.e., a clear beginning, middle, and an end, where the character winds up -- at the end -- in a place often entirely different from where they started.

After working on Shrdlu in Elmer Rice's The Adding Machine, I began to understand him, and one day, fairly early in rehearsal, I asked Mr. Shrdlu why he killed his mother (because in the world of the play, I don't believe that Shrdlu ever really understands why he did it -- we know why he did it, but he doesn't. That's really what his problem is). Shrdlu, now much more awake and aware then he was in the world of the play, had this to say -- a short, hopefully nice, little monologue:

Correcting A Mistake

My name is Shrdlu, Etaoin Shrdlu.

Do you know what it was like growing up with a name no one could pronounce? It wasn't anyone’s fault – it’s unpronounceable. My mother gave it to me. She was a typesetter for Osprey, The Niagara Falls Review. They used a Linotype typesetting machine to compose the pages. My name: it’s the first two sequences of letters on the machine, and if the machine jams, the entire two sequences can drop, and if the proof reader doesn’t catch it, my name can accidentally appear in print. Once, the headline of the Osprey read “Today, the president welcomed the prime minister of Etaoin Shrdlu.”

Shrdlu … it means a mistake.

But – I liked to think of it as something else. Etaoin Shrdlu - it could appear anywhere, in any sentence, and as long as it didn't take the place of a verb, it fit. I could be anything. That’s what my name really meant.

Mom wanted me to be a proof reader, so that Etaoin Shrdlu would never be seen. As Shrdlu, I could be anything. As a proof reader, I would never exist. 13 years of wiping myself out of existence. 13 years, and then suddenly it hit me – I need to wipe someone else out of existence.

Pronunciation Key:

Et·a·oin Shrd·lu - et’-ah-oyne Shrud-loo