Female Monologue: I Hate the Divorce Papers
Comedic monologue satirizing the "I Ate the Divorce Papers" monologue from the play Goodbye Charles
By Gabriel Davis
(Monologist is eating at a restaurant. Perhaps on a date with a young man in financial services)
I hate the divorce papers. Please get that ketchup away. I don’t know, flag down the waiter. As a little girl I used to love ketchup. Now I can’t look at it without thinking of that monologue. You know that monologue “I Ate the Divorce Papers”? The one that basically haunts every theatre kid’s life. Some guy posted it on the internet and now no matter what monologue you’re looking for online, that’s the one you find. You could type “To Be or Not To Be” into Google and you would get back “To eat the divorce papers or not to eat the divorce papers.” Not! Please Not!
You can’t escape that monologue. I begged our theatre teacher to ban that monologue from our school and … he did! It was heaven. People started doing Moliere and Marlowe and Mamet. Williams and Wild and Wilder. Finally. But then over the summer, that theatre teacher who banned “the divorce papers” won the lottery. So he was gone. And guess what came back? That’s right everyone went right back to chewing the scenery by “eating the divorce papers” and I was so sick of it.
And then my worst nightmare happened. My boyfriend was like, “I’m going to audition for Juilliard with ‘I Ate the Divorce Papers’.” So I’m all, “I’m breaking up with you.” And he’s like “C’mon, a man doing ‘the papers’ for Juilliard, it’ll be crazy and ballsy and edgy.” And I’m like “there is nothing edgy about ‘I Ate the Divorce Papers’ except maybe how its putting me on the edge of a nervous breakdown!” And he’s like, “Well, I’m doing it. Do you wanna watch me rehearse?” And I say “I’d rather you pour steaming hot magma on my head. I was going to marry you. Marry you. You were my future husband. But I cannot stomach the thought of listening to you practice that monologue for the next two months. So I’m going to have to stomach the thought of losing you. Goodbye, Charles.” His names not actually Charles. It’s Steve.
So Steve leaves and guess what happens next? Steve gets into Juilliard! Steve gets in … “with ketchup!” Apparently Juilliard thought Steve’s performance was good. Goooood! And what’s worse, I got into Juilliard too. My dream school but I can’t go…now. I can’t go now because, I just cannot go to a place that would admit someone who forces people to listen to that monologue. Someone who would have been the perfect father to my children.
I mean that monologue has basically taken everything from me. The man of my dreams and the school of my dreams and its basically ruined the career of my dreams for me forever. Maybe I’ll go into banking now. Bankers do not know that monologue. Thank god. That’s how I will escape it. Because I just … I hate the divorce papers. I hate them more than I love my dreams.
Waiter! Will you please take this ketchup!
By Gabriel Davis
(Monologist is eating at a restaurant. Perhaps on a date with a young man in financial services)
I hate the divorce papers. Please get that ketchup away. I don’t know, flag down the waiter. As a little girl I used to love ketchup. Now I can’t look at it without thinking of that monologue. You know that monologue “I Ate the Divorce Papers”? The one that basically haunts every theatre kid’s life. Some guy posted it on the internet and now no matter what monologue you’re looking for online, that’s the one you find. You could type “To Be or Not To Be” into Google and you would get back “To eat the divorce papers or not to eat the divorce papers.” Not! Please Not!
You can’t escape that monologue. I begged our theatre teacher to ban that monologue from our school and … he did! It was heaven. People started doing Moliere and Marlowe and Mamet. Williams and Wild and Wilder. Finally. But then over the summer, that theatre teacher who banned “the divorce papers” won the lottery. So he was gone. And guess what came back? That’s right everyone went right back to chewing the scenery by “eating the divorce papers” and I was so sick of it.
And then my worst nightmare happened. My boyfriend was like, “I’m going to audition for Juilliard with ‘I Ate the Divorce Papers’.” So I’m all, “I’m breaking up with you.” And he’s like “C’mon, a man doing ‘the papers’ for Juilliard, it’ll be crazy and ballsy and edgy.” And I’m like “there is nothing edgy about ‘I Ate the Divorce Papers’ except maybe how its putting me on the edge of a nervous breakdown!” And he’s like, “Well, I’m doing it. Do you wanna watch me rehearse?” And I say “I’d rather you pour steaming hot magma on my head. I was going to marry you. Marry you. You were my future husband. But I cannot stomach the thought of listening to you practice that monologue for the next two months. So I’m going to have to stomach the thought of losing you. Goodbye, Charles.” His names not actually Charles. It’s Steve.
So Steve leaves and guess what happens next? Steve gets into Juilliard! Steve gets in … “with ketchup!” Apparently Juilliard thought Steve’s performance was good. Goooood! And what’s worse, I got into Juilliard too. My dream school but I can’t go…now. I can’t go now because, I just cannot go to a place that would admit someone who forces people to listen to that monologue. Someone who would have been the perfect father to my children.
I mean that monologue has basically taken everything from me. The man of my dreams and the school of my dreams and its basically ruined the career of my dreams for me forever. Maybe I’ll go into banking now. Bankers do not know that monologue. Thank god. That’s how I will escape it. Because I just … I hate the divorce papers. I hate them more than I love my dreams.
Waiter! Will you please take this ketchup!
@casehightheatre.co I Ate The Divorce Papers #MusicalTheatre #Theatrekid #Fyp #ForYou ♬ original sound - Case High Theatre Co
@cjtemplemusic Reply to @denialescobedo Don’t mind me, I’m just an overachiever. #transatlanticaccent #theatre #monologue #drama #fyp #voiceeffects ♬ original sound - CJ Temple
@who.the.lovely Reply to @3aconn okay overacting pop off #netflix #acting #actor #training #RayBanElevatorDance #PlantersTrickShot #DontSweatIt #theater #makeup ♬ original sound - Betty □