The best women's stage monologues of 2004

Someone is always looking for a monolog in a library. Smith & Kraus has gone a long way toward sating that desire with its "Annual Best Monologues" series for men and for women; the latest volumes continue a fine tradition, with returning editor Lepidus categorizing the selections as comic, dramatic, and seriocomic. An examination of the distribution of the monologs over the years shows that good times are just around the corner. In 1990, just two comic monologs shone among 24 dramatic and 24 seriocomic episodes. This year, gales of laughter are sure to emanate from basements and rehearsal halls as the forces of seriocomedy are vanquished (sort of) by 15 comedic monologs for women and 13 for men. Comedy, unlike death, must be very hard indeed. Among the many authors represented, Jon Robin Baitz and Don Nigro appear to be perennial favorites. Most of the monologs urge a deeper examination of the plays from which they sprang.In Talk to Me, editors Lane and Shengold, both playwrights based in New York City, have collected eight full-length monolog plays, e.g., Craig Wright's I Am My Own Wife, winner of the 2004 Tony for best play, along with 11 shorter works and several excerpts. The longer pieces demand a facility for memorization and an acting technique rarely seen among professionals, much less stand-out student actors. However, the student actors who frequent your library will need this book owing to the variety of characters contained within each monolog. They will encounter exercises every bit as challenging as those offered in gyms. Like Play the Scene: The Ultimate Collection of Contemporary and Classic Scenes and Monologues, edited by Michael Schulman and Eve Mekler, these three titles stand out in the crowded field of monolog books. Strongly recommended for academic libraries, these works would not be out of place in most public libraries.--Larry Schwartz, Minnesota State Univ. Lib., Moorhead (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.