- THE DUCHESS OF MALFI (2024)
Audition Info
Audition Date / TIME
Monday 10th June 2024 at 8pm
LOCATION
United Reformed Church, Chapel Street, Melton Mowbray (Upstairs Room)
WHAT DO I NEED TO DO?
We will start with some group workshop tasks and looking at small sections of dialogue. It is likely that you will change partners and work with different people throughout. There is no need to prepare anything for this.
The second part of the audition will be a presentation of a prepared monologue (link below). You can choose from either ‘The Duchess’ or ‘Ferdinand’. This can either be learnt or with script in hand. You can deliver the whole speech, or one half (see below). I’m not looking for a finished performance, but rather I want to see your understanding of the piece and that you’ve made some creative choices about how to deliver it. This is mainly because the rehearsal process will require a lot of independent line learning and preparation. Monologues will not be delivered in front of anyone else.
Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions!
Click here to download the audition monologues as a Word document:
More information
To find out more about the plot of the play and the characters, please click the button below to access the Info Page:
FERDINAND. The howling of a wolf
Is music to thee, screech-owl: prithee, peace.—
Whate’er thou art that hast enjoy’d my sister,
For I am sure thou hear’st me, for thine own sake
Let me not know thee. I came hither prepar’d
To work thy discovery; yet am now persuaded
It would beget such violent effects
As would damn us both. I would not for ten millions
I had beheld thee: therefore use all means
I never may have knowledge of thy name;
Enjoy thy lust still, and a wretched life,
On that condition.
—And for thee, vile woman,
If thou do wish thy lecher may grow old
In thy embracements, I would have thee build
Such a room for him as our anchorites
To holier use inhabit. Let not the sun
Shine on him till he ‘s dead; let dogs and monkeys
Only converse with him, and such dumb things
To whom nature denies use to sound his name;
Do not keep a paraquito, lest she learn it;
If thou do love him, cut out thine own tongue,
Lest it bewray him.
DUCHESS. Now she pays it.
The misery of us that are born great!
We are forc’d to woo, because none dare woo us;
And as a tyrant doubles with his words,
And fearfully equivocates, so we
Are forc’d to express our violent passions
In riddles and in dreams, and leave the path
Of simple virtue, which was never made
To seem the thing it is not. Go, go brag
You have left me heartless; mine is in your bosom:
I hope ’twill multiply love there.
You do tremble:
Make not your heart so dead a piece of flesh,
To fear more than to love me. Sir, be confident:
What is ‘t distracts you? This is flesh and blood, sir;’
Tis not the figure cut in alabaster
Kneels at my husband’s tomb. Awake, awake, man!
I do here put off all vain ceremony,
And only do appear to you a young widow
That claims you for her husband, and, like a widow,
I use but half a blush in ‘t.