My Monlogue

My monologue is Cleopatra from the play Antony and Cleopatra, by William Shakespeare. Shakespeare wrote this at the end of 1606 or the beginning of 1607, as the dates weren’t dated very well back then, it was after he finished Macbeth and before he wrote Coriolanus. The play is a dramatization of a tragic and celebrated love affair of Antony and Cleopatra. Basically antony and  Octuvious Caesar, grand-nephew and adopted son of murdered Julius Caesar, are left to rule the world.  Antony is married to Fluvia, and lives in Egypt with his mistress Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt. And Caesar is angry by this and calls Antony back home to Rome, which Antony does but only after his wife has died. When in Rome Antony and Caesar try to make amends when Antony marries Caesars sister, Octovia. Antony soon deserts and goes back to Egypt to be with Cleopatra again. Caesar gets mad and vows to attack Egypt and gain power back of Antony and Cleopatra. Soon only death is coming for Antony and soon asks Eros to kill him; he declines so Antony falls on his sword and kills himself. Cleopatra is in Massive grief over Antony’s death and is determined to never fall under Caesars power, so she commits suicide as well by Allowing a poisonous asp, a snake, to bit her. And this also means she believed she would be with Antony again.   


The monologue itself is where Cleopatra was saying goodbye before she killed herself. The reason I chose this monologue, was because I wanted to betray a strong confident woman. when I learnt that Shakespeare wrote the play Antony and Cleopatra I knew I wanted something from this. I searched all the Cleopatra monologues I could find and the suicide one stuck out for me because you could tell she was being brave and strong just by reading the words. Thats how I chose to do this monologue.


 My research for this was by reading the play which is hard to understand, and I was also helped by my brother. He made me watch the episode of the TV series Rome, when Antony and Cleopatra commit suicide. While watching this my brother explained things and told me exactly what was happening. He also gave me other random facts during the era of 50bc which helped me a lot to first understand what happened and why and also made me understand everything in my monologue and answered some lines from the piece that I questioned.

My Performance

When I first started my piece I thought I was doing well but 3 lines in I forgot what my line. I was allowed to start again. When I started again I was glad because I started so much better. I remebered all my lines this time and I got through it all while showing the correct emiotion when needed as she has a lot of emotion going through her during her speech, such as; sadness, anger, hurt, confusion and confidence. Halfway through my monologue I was supposed to kiss Cleopatra's maid and best friend Iris. I was by myself performing so I decided to blow a kiss instead. I hoped that this would get across the emotion to the audience and as if I was saying goodbye to everybody. I also wanted it to show that she did love everybody and she loved being Queen however she loved Antony more and this was something she had to do.
If I got the chance to perform it again I would. This was the first time I showed this monologue however I used this for 3 University auditions and it got better in time and at my 3rd audition it was the best I ever performed it.