Seventeen Stitches: Rachel’s monologue
A dark comedy monologue
From the one-act play, Seventeen Stitches
By Tara Meddaugh
Cast: Female
Age range: teen – young adult
Running time: Approximately 2 minutes
Genre: Dark Comedy/Thriller
About the play: In this one-act dark comedy/thriller, Rachel and Peter meet in a vortex-like space between opposing lines of people. While Rachel is simply passing the time before she returns to her place in line, Peter has stepped out of his line in protest. As the lines begin to close in on them, he must make a life-altering decision by choosing to continue forging his path in his father’s line, or join the haunting allure of Rachel’s line, the “line of diamonds.”
About the monologue: Rachel recounts to her old classmate, Peter, how she first met him. After being bullied by a classmate on a teeter totter, Peter stepped in and punch the bully.
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RACHEL
We weren’t in the same class, but we had recess together. Play time. I’m Rachel. You’re Peter, right? I remember the name of someone who saved me. I was on the teeter totter with Becky Hill—she was really big, remember? She was my age—maybe six, or whatever age you are in first grade. I think she weighed over a hundred pounds already. I weighed maybe 40, or whatever you’re supposed to weigh at that age. Hey, are you crying? I’m telling you the tale of why I know you and I really think you ought to be listening to me. So maybe Becky didn’t like me because I stuttered when I read Dr. Seuss, or she was jealous that I still wore kids’ t-shirts or maybe she didn’t like me because I was just who she didn’t want to like—I don’t know. But when I was way up high and she was way down low, when her totter was touching the pavement, she—END OF EXCERPT
Click for the free monologue, Seventeen Stitches: Rachel’s monologue.
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Click below for the one-act play, Seventeen Stitches, from which Rachel’s monologue comes.